Acceptance
by gracefuldays
Summary: Is there anything the guys can do to save Janine after she has lost the fight against the Makeoveris Lotsabucks? Freely inspired to Annasibs's "Memento" (alternative end to "Janine, you've Changed").
1. Prologue

_**Disclaimer:**_**  
**_I really would like to thank **Annasibs**, who gave me permission to take free inspiration from her oneshot "**Memento**"._  
_Please be sure to go read it! ( - /s/8413477/1/Memento)._

_I also would like to thank my beta reader, Exley K. Spengler._  
_One last special thanks to Sheri, who read this fic as I wrote it and bore with me._  
_Thanks also to anyone that will read this to the end, I hope you'll enjoy it._

* * *

**Acceptance**

The book clearly stated that a healthy mourning process is composed by stages which every single human being experiences: denial, rage, bargaining, depression and lastly acceptance.

Comfortably wrapped by shadows and warmed by the faint light of a small table lamp, Egon kept reading again and again the same page of that thick psychology manual he had secretly borrowed from Peter. He badly needed to give order to the illogical chaos that ruled over his mind.

Not being able to think and act according to the laws of logic was dangerously taking him to the extreme border between sanity and madness. He felt so silly thinking that those weird, irrational feelings stirred up by jealousy and romantic love (that always made his stomach knot and his face go pink for little to no reason) used to scare him. At the moment he deeply missed being tormented by them as much as he missed the person that still had the power to trigger them.

His glasses, neatly folded on top of a pile of books on the coffee table, projected their small shadow on the front cover of a ruined copy of the DSM-II – yet another manual he had dug up from Peter's college stuff.

Self-assessing his psychological condition maybe wasn't the best way to spend a late Monday night, but he shrugged that thought off and let his brain intake and elaborate the information his eyes were reading.

Twenty-three days, twenty-two hours and a bunch of minutes had passed since the night they had lost her. He still couldn't believe Janine could be forever lost. She couldn't be. She had to still be hanging in there, somewhere his instruments couldn't detect her. He refused to believe otherwise.

_Denial, check._

It could have been so simple. He had played that scene again and again in his mind. He could have just taken off his pack and opened up his heart to her. Maybe it could have worked. It _would_ have worked. To hear him say those simple words straight out surely would have awakened her from the fairy godmother's spell. And now they could be together, probably napping on her absolutely uncomfortable couch. He could be sleeping peacefully, feeling her weight pressed on his own body.

If only...

_This must be..."Bargaining", I think. _

He put the book down, closed his eyes and rubbed them. Reading in semi-darkness wasn't the best thing to do either, just he didn't want to wake the others up, they needed their sleep. Not only Ray had come down with a really bad flu, but also they all were in the process of grieving that weird loss. Yeah, technically Janine was still with them, or at least her body was.

On the other hand her soul... they didn't really know what had happened to her soul. It could have been permanently corrupted or plain stolen. They had spent days running tests on her and the fact that their meters couldn't detect Janine's original biorhythms from that body anymore had killed any hope to successfully make a desperate attempt to save her. A sinister and faint class seven-like reading coated her new biorhythms, suggesting she was in the process of transforming into a demon.

They had kept that particular piece of information to themselves. The only thing they could do was to keep her monitored at all time and wait.

They hadn't taken any solace in trapping the Makeoveris Lotabucks that had ruined her, it had been a complete defeat for all of them. They had ran out of options and could only wait, wait, wait.

Mourning a person that's not dead yet makes it really tricky for the brain and her situation could be very easily compared to a terminally ill patient's. A patient that doesn't know to be doomed yet.

Egon scratched his chin and his fingers got tickled by the stubble he had forgotten to shave. For the first time in his recent life he regretted not having an apartment of his own; he could have used a few lonely days away from the firehouse. It was surely a selfish thought, but he could barely stand that woman. He couldn't stand her musical voice, he couldn't stand her golden hair, he couldn't stand her perfect, curvy body. All he could feel whenever she entered his vision field was anger. Why had she been so incredibly stupid...

_Oh, anger._

A digital clock beeped 4 a.m..

He stood up, stretched his legs and walked to the kitchen, turning on the small light over the stove. As he gathered the things needed to brew himself some coffee, he continued his inner monologue. Was he really angry with her? He shook his head. No, he couldn't blame her. He was incredibly pissed off with himself instead. He knew Janine had been going through some hard times. Problems with her family, fights with her friends... he knew she'd been so helplessly insecure about herself. His ambiguous behavior towards her had aggravated her condition and driven her straight into the arms of the Makeoveris Lotsabucks. He sighed, pushing his hair out of his face. He had also forgot it was about time to go get a haircut. Everything was a chore to him lately. What was wrong with his brain?

_That's called 'depression'. _

The smell of coffee dragged him out of his thoughts. He dug out a plain black headband from the pocket of his sweatpants and secured the rebel locks of hair out of the way before pouring himself a cup. He turned to go back to the couch and almost dropped the mug. A man was probably looking at him from the staircase.

"Lost your glasses again?"- Peter asked, walking towards him to let him stop squinting.

"I didn't hear you coming."- Egon replied, then shrugged- "Forgot to put them back on again. Coffee?"- he offered him his mug.

"Why not."

* * *

Peter sat on the couch as his friend poured himself another cup before joining him and couldn't miss the massive amount of psychology and psychiatry textbooks neatly piled up in columns on the coffee table. - "I see you found my lost DSM manual."- his voice held no reproach, he didn't really care if Egon had rummaged through his college junk. The guy was going through the hardest time of his life, he'd rather have him study psychology books than lay depressed in his bed.

The physicist sat by him, not completely managing to block a shade of pink heating his cheeks. He remained silent, blowing lightly on his coffee. It felt truly embarrassing to be caught red handed.

"How are you?"

Peter's voice made him turn to finally look at his face. - "According to your books, I'm simultaneously experiencing four of the five mourning process stages. I'm not sure how I feel about it."

"At least you haven't self diagnosed with some weird psychiatric syndrome."- Peter produced a little grin, sliding an arm around Egon's shoulders. He felt him stiffen, he'd been even less prone than usual to talking about his feelings. They had shared long sessions of meaningful silence since the day that tragedy had happened- "It's not gonna feel better anytime soon, but we'll make it through."

Egon felt he couldn't keep his feelings for himself anymore. The books were helpful, but it was just a load of new info his brain was fed with, not a real help. He had reached saturation and needed to talk and elaborate.

"Peter..."- he started, unsure about how to go on. A number of thoughts suddenly crowded his mind and closed his throat. He felt the man's hand grasp his shoulder, as if to encourage him to go on. He tightened his grip on the cup and decided to give up and speak his mind.

"I still have troubles not blaming myself for what happened. Mainly because I am firmly convinced it is my fault, and there are no words that can convince me of the contrary. But this is not the problem."- he calmly spoke out.- "What I cannot accept is that I cannot think of any way to assess whether any of Janine's soul is still present within her body. I don't have any idea when she's going to stop being a human at all, too. I know I might be in denial, as your excellent books suggest, but I know I am not. I still feel her presence here, Peter. I know she's still here, but I have no way to prove it."

"What makes you think that?"- Peter knew it was useless to question his friend's feel. They all had gone through enough ghostbusting to be able to distinguish between delusion and that distinct, cold sweat inducing sensation of being in the presence of a preternatural being- "Are you suggesting a part of her's turned into a ghost?"

"I... I don't know about that. According to our equipment there is no such trace, even adjusting her original data to simulate a class four state."- the coffee had gone from lavic temperature to a more drinkable one, so the physicist paused to take a long sip. It was about time to spill the beans.- "It's just that... I see her in my dreams. They're very vivid dreams that leave me exhausted. At first she just kept flying away, reiterating what I had witnessed that day. A sort of fixed repeater, we could say for sake of argument."

That bit of information made the psychologist frown. He had had his good share of nightmares about that day too, as well as Winston and Ray had. They had talked about it between themselves. No one had experienced anything like Egon was describing. He remained silent, waiting for the other to speak again.

"As I told you, that night she succumbed to the Makeoveris Lotsabucks' spell, I saw her fly away. Bright light, white angel wings and all."- Egon chuckled nervously. It was starting to feel too uncomfortable. Something inside him didn't want him to talk about _that_. He fought that feeling. - "I have kept to myself a memento of that night, a feather that came off her wings."- seeing Peter widening his eyes, he cut him off before he could say anything- "Off course I've scanned that too, and, although its cellular structure is clearly not natural, our instruments detect no residuals relevant to our case coming from it."

"What about this feather then?"- the dark haired man was getting more and more confused, he couldn't foresee what his friend was getting at.

A month earlier that conversation would have stopped there. It was getting too private too fast. But Egon finally was pissed off with himself enough not to give a damn anymore about keeping private his most private secrets and feelings at all costs. That stupid behavioral pattern of his had already ruined someone's life, he was determined to make things right. - "It's the only thing I have left of her. I keep it locked in my drawer, at the lab. It helped me making it through the first days. Then one night I felt particularly depressed I took it to bed with me. I usually put it under the pillow so I'm sure I don't ruin it."

"The dream changed."- Peter dared to guess. He was rewarded with a timid smile.

The digital clock beeped 5 a.m. and birds chirped just outside of the windows.

"Exactly. When I keep the feather near as I sleep, I mostly dream of her looking at me from afar. Sometimes instead, I dream of her standing or sitting closer to me. While I'm dreaming I can remember her voice, I can smell her scent... hear her laughter."- he felt headache irradiating from his temples and massaged them.- "It could be I have gone completely insane, deep into delusion. Or maybe it's my delusion that makes me think I am not delusional."

"I know you enough to believe you're not crazy. Well, not _that _kind of crazy."- Peter felt hope flooding straight into the core of his soul. He was having some kind of twisted fun reciprocating the flirtatious advances of this new Janine, but it was mostly out of boredom. He missed his stormy, somewhat brotherly relationship with good old Big J. He wanted her back badly. - "You sure this feather ain't giving away any lead we could follow? You tried to analyze it under particular circumstances?... I don't know... under a full moon? Or maybe at the same time as when it was created?"

Egon frowned, mentally listing all of the tests he had run and under what condition.

Peter had given him a good track: what had he not tried?

Silence fell on them as Peter let him think, finishing off his own coffee with calm and looking at him tormenting his chin. It had taken almost a month for Egon's brain to reset and get back to work at full power, but if there was even half a chance to make things right...

His trail of thought was abruptly interrupted by a loud gasp coming from his friend.

"I am so fucking retarded."

Peter smiled to Egon's unusual cursing. It was gonna be a good day.

* * *

The alarm clock's fastidious ring echoed through the silent apartment.

It was 7 a.m. and it was going to be a fine, sunny, late spring day.

Janine slammed her hand on the snooze button and covered her head with one of the two pillows she kept on her bed. Sleep was getting more and more restless. She would have liked to blame it on stress, but there was no stress in her current life, apart from the guys psyching over her new condition and popping up with any kind of weird test once every two or three days. It wasn't anything worth being stressed about, though. Otherwise, the firehouse had been awfully silent: very few calls, no accidents at the lab, quick and smooth billing tasks she could easily handle. She had picked up out of boredom a couple of modeling jobs and had used the extra money to revamp her wardrobe and finally get rid of that awful couch.

Those last couple of weeks had been the best of her life. Men lining up to ask her out, talent scouts out to hire her and a good flow of money going into her bank account. Becoming incredibly beautiful was the best thing ever happened to her.  
She had found no problem whatsoever in accepting gifts from her new found suitors. Men were all the same. They just wanted to use her, to conquer her because of her looks. Out of a whim, she had even tried to flirt with Peter and he had flirted back several times. Certainly because her now blond curls and curvy body were appealing to him. Just a man after all. She could have all the men in the world, except...

The alarm clock dragged her violently out of her thinking. She turned the damn thing off and slid out of the bed. Fluffy slippers welcomed her feet and she dragged herself to the kitchen to get her first coffee of the day.

Scattered memories of a fading dream made her frown as she waited for the coffee to be done. She vaguely remembered dreaming about swimming in the sea. She'd go deeper and deeper and her chest would feel warmer and warmer... then a hand grabbing her strongly by the forearm and dragging her upwards to cold, cold surface...

It felt like a familiar dream. She had been having similar dreams for the past ten days or so.

Coffee kick started her mind and let her focus on her morning routine. Shower, skin care, a fix to her hair, make up. She got so lost in taking care of her beloved new body that she barely noticed how the red mark that had appeared a few days earlier on her back- right below her shoulder blades- was starting to swell and hurt a little. It looked like someone had whipped her, leaving behind a reddening line. She dismissed it as a consequence of sleeping on such an old mattress now that her skin was much more delicate.  
"I really need to buy a decent mattress as soon as I get my paycheck."- she said aloud to herself as she put on the clothes she had decided to wear.


	2. Chapter 1

Peter wondered why his bed had become so narrow, kinda hard and curving upwards. Just out of a nice dream of fame and glory, he curled up trying to command his brains to keep dreaming. He hugged his pillow. His pillow felt like warm skin and bones, with a hint of hair. He opened his eyes and his vision focused on a small, pale pink nipple. Definitely not belonging to a woman.  
He looked up and got a good view of Egon's throat and chin, and remembered the happenings of the previous night.  
They had probably passed out and collapsed on each other as their psychotherapeutic session had become a heated brainstorming to win that war they thought they had lost.

Peter shrugged his shoulders, shifted to find a more comfortable position on his warm human bed with all the intentions to surrender to sleep again. The 'bed', on his part, was done sleeping and stirred, yawning.  
"You two ready for breakfast?"- Winston called from the dining area. He had been observing them for a while as they slept. That was some serious bromance and it amused him.

"What time is it?"- the physicist asked, poking his head from over the rest of the couch. Peter sat up too, scratching his head and feeling all of the cells in his body cry for some good coffee and food.  
"About nine."- Winston answered, then remembered he carried a watch on his wrist and checked it- "Yeah, it's ten to nine."

"You kiddin' me right? I need ways more sleep."- Peter moaned, slumping back on the couch and covering his face with Egon's discarded T-shirt.

Egon exchanged glances with Winston and decided to let his friend have some more sleep and go get a shower and a shave. It was going to be a long day and he couldn't wait to jump straight into it.

* * *

Janine had some difficulties tripping up the stairs leading to the second floor of the firehouse carrying a rather heavy box of donuts. - "Guys? Can I have some help here?"- she called, trying not to lose her balance. Damned stiletto high heels. But they were so perfect to valorize her new shape that she couldn't help wearing them.

The weight of the box was lifted from her hands by a surprised Winston - "We celebrating something?"- he asked, opening the cardboard lid and taking a look at the huge amount of goodness protected by the white, large package.  
He was maintaining a 'normal' approach to her; although their scientific investigation had only given uncomfortable responses, he firmly believed that she was still human, still herself, not yet completely lost. Somewhere deep down, under that inhumanly perfect shell, she was there.  
He had noticed how sometimes, when she was feeling particularly relaxed, her new personality glitched and let her original one come to surface.  
Maybe the Makeoveris Lotsabucks' spell hadn't been completed.  
He was sure they still had a chance, they needed to give it time.

"Nah, I stopped to buy one for breakfast and the guy insisted on giving me the whole tray as a gift."- she replied, walking with him to the dining table. She talked in an annoyed voice, but inside she felt as if she had just come home victorious from a hunting spree.- "Where's everyone?"- she asked, seeing no one at the table. Usually there would be a mess of mugs and plates as well as her bosses eating like no tomorrow.

"Two asleep and one showering."- the man replied, placing the sugary goodness on the table.

"Make that one asleep, one severely enraged and one running." - Egon amended Winston's statement from the staircase, aiming a sling loaded with a small plastic ball at Peter, still deeply asleep on the couch in a bizarre prone position and oblivious to everything around him. The shower had reset Egon's mood as well as his neurones. A good prank could only make the day better.

"Go for the butt."- Janine didn't think twice and stealth walked closer to the staircase to get a clear view. Winston preferred to steal himself a donut before hell breaking loose and observe from as far as possible, taking mental note of Janine acting like her original, less classy self.

"Which side?"- the physicist whispered, perfecting his aiming position.  
There were moments where it didn't seem at all like Janine wasn't Janine anymore. If it wasn't for his granitic scientific evidence, he could even let himself believe her essence hadn't been corrupted.  
He had decided to enjoy those moments as much as he could, as if they were little random gifts that let him keep her alive in his mind in preparation for the moment when she'd have become an enemy.

"Left butt cheek."- she whispered back, taking then cover behind the man enjoying his cranberry donut.

Egon closed one eye and held his breath.

* * *

Ray was lost in one of those medicine induced naps in which you can't really tell if you're dreaming or not, but everything is weightless and fluffy. He felt pink cotton candy clouds wrapping his head and totally loved the sticky warmth of the pile of blankets weighting on his sore body.

The unstable weather really had screwed him good and so he was stuck in bed with a fever to keep him company.

His stomach growled loudly. He hadn't had much of an appetite for the past few days, so that was good news. He had just started to stir cautiously to avoid eliciting any more muscular pain, when a particularly inhuman scream echoed through the otherwise silent firehouse, followed by thudding footsteps going up the spiraled staircase and the loud bang of the lab's door slamming shut.

"I'm so fucking gonna get you!"- Peter's voice was loud enough to make it through the closed doors of the bunk room as well as the banging of his fists on the door.- "EGON! Open this door or I'll kick it down!"

Ray ignored the headache, heaved a sigh of contentment. He was just glad that another ordinary day at the firehouse had started and he was feeling good enough to enjoy it.

* * *

Eventually Peter calmed down and managed to extract Egon from the lab by proposing a truce.  
Sitting side by side at the dining table, they stayed in silence. Egon knew Peter would get his revenge, Peter knew Egon knew and everyone else knew retaliation was on its way, keeping all of them on edge.

"So... uhm.." - Janine felt a tad guilty as she tried to come up with any topic of conversation to lighten the general mood. She was an accomplice to the hilarious deed after all and she felt ashamed for her own childish behavior. It didn't fit her new groove at all.- "...So. How are you today, Ray?"

Ray couldn't help glancing at the silent duo sitting in front of him before turning his head to look at Janine- "Doing much better, thanks. Fever seems to be gone, too."- he just had to be patient and wait for his stomach to accept food again. For the moment, he had to satisfy himself with a cup of warm tea and a couple of wheat crackers.

"You look so much better."- Janine took a second to empty her second mug of coffee of the day. She was genuinely happy to see his face not being pale anymore and smiled. Then she realized something and frowned - "You're not gonna jump straight back into work, are you?"

"Well..." - Ray smiled awkwardly. She knew him well. But he couldn't wait to go back into the lab and resume from where he was forced to stop. - "I guess...I'll try."

The woman shook her head and lifted her mug to her lips before remembering there was no liquid left for her to drink.  
Peter's eyes lit up as he took that chance and stood up from his seat- "Janine, _honey_! Let me get you _more_ coffee!"- he purred.

"Uhm... Thanks..."- she was caught off guard and couldn't refuse the offer.  
Everyone watched him as he went to pick the pitcher up from the kitchen, rustled in the cupboard, found the sugar jar and got back to the table.

"There you go."- Peter placed the sugar jar right in the middle of the table and poured more coffee into her mug. - "Anyone else wants more coffee? Winston? _Egon_?"

Winston tilted his mug to show he still had half a cup to go, refusing the suspicious offer. He was surprised to see Egon nod and accept the psychologist's proposal.

Peter grinned and filled both his and the physicist's mugs. Just no one dared to drink first..  
"C'mon guys. It ain't poisoned." - he marked his words by taking up his coffee cup and drinking a mouthful- "See? Still alive."  
Janine went second and decided to take a softer approach to the coffee, taking a little sip. - "Tastes like coffee."

Egon couldn't stand black coffee, so he dug a tea spoon into the sugar jar, versed the grainy white substance into the mug, stirred it thoroughly. The rhythmic tinkling of the spoon hitting the ceramic was soon covered by the sound of the others' voices resuming conversation.  
Everyone had relaxed again and soon the topic became the annoying lack of calls and the dreaded, likely option of having to go out and find 'real' jobs.

Absorbed deeply by the conversation, the blond man finally remembered about his beverage, took the mug to his lips and drank, immediately feeling the taste buds on his tongue revolting to the disgustingly salty liquid. He took his just punishment with dignity and kept up a really good poker face as he pressed a hand over his mouth not to spit on the table, silently excusing himself to go spit in the kitchen sink.

Peter welcomed him back with a satisfied grin on his face- "Well played."- he commented, patting Egon's back as he sat back down.- "Very well played."

* * *

About half an hour later Janine decided it was time to tackle the final billings of the month.  
The guys waited for her to be gone, then left the table as it was – a great mess of crumbs, mugs and cutlery- to go lock themselves up in the lab.

Egon was feeling more and more uncomfortable. He didn't really want to show the feather to his friends. The feather had the power to kick start random memories of himself and Janine whenever he touched it or slept near it. Even _private _kind of memories.  
The most logic conclusion surely was that the feather would react with the person holding it and evoke that person's memories, but the remote chance of anyone else being enabled to see (or, even worse, feel) his own secret, intimate moments with the redhead deeply unsettled him and made the muscles of his neck stiffen up.  
As if to escape the anxiety that whirlwind of thoughts was causing him, he found himself leaning on the window frame. Outside the sun was timidly shining after long days of cloudy weather and a pleasant warmth radiated from the reinforced glass. He distractedly listened to Ray whining about something; apparently Winston and Peter insisted on confining him to the small couch and wrap him up in some huge blanket. The lively exchange made Egon smile and feel a pleasant sensation of warmth coming from inside, giving his system a small break from the overload of negativity from the past weeks.

Voices were being passively processed by his auditory system when a hand found his shoulder, making him redirect his attention to the people in the room with him.  
"Egon?"- Winston's face looked worried. He had been giving him his best worried looks those past weeks, making the physicist feel a hint of guilt for his own selfish behavior.  
"Yes?"- the man replied, turning to rest his back against the window's frame. He remembered too late he should have come up with a proper facial expression to mask the fact that he hadn't been listening to a word they said.

Winston sighed, his mouth curling up in an amused smirk- "Peter was telling us about what you told him last night. Care to elaborate on that?"

"Off course."- Egon straightened his back and joined the others.

He and Peter carefully reconstructed their conversation from the previous night as Ray listened to them in silence, taking note on a piece of paper of everything that he judged being relevant.  
The more they spoke, the more Winston felt confused. He raised one hand. Peter fell silent to let him ask his question.  
"So this feather doesn't give off any useful reading. Isn't it a contradiction? Shouldn't it be charged with some kind of power to be able to evoke only memories of Janine?"

"That's a very good point. As I said, I haven't tested it under all possible conditions but so far the results are very clear."- the physicist replied, searching his pockets for the key to open his personal drawer. It was about time he showed the feather to them. He found the key. - "I'll get the feather so we can test it again."  
A moment later he was sitting on his stool, a narrow velvet case in his hands. His fingers easily opened it, revealing a rather ordinary looking white feather. He placed the open case on the couch's armrest and activated his meter.

"That's weird."- Ray stated, giving a closer look to the object of their interest. He untangled his arms from the blanket and carefully took the feather's calamus between his thumb and index finger.

_The file cabinet came down crushing on her desk, trapping them in a small space.  
_"_That was close."- he moaned.  
__A couple of splinters lodged into his calf as he tried to shield her with his body.  
__Hell was breaking loose around them, and not having a proton pack was incredibly bad luck.  
__She pressed herself against him, hissing a very long and complex curse.  
_"_I'm not gonna fucking die under my desk!"- she yelled, kicking what remained of the cabinet so hard that her booted leg was able to crack its wood.  
__Their new employee sure had guts and he didn't dislike it one bit._

The occultist gasped and let the feather go at once, his face going pale as the vivid memory quickly faded back into darkness- "W...what the heck?!"

"Did you see something?"- Peter's eyes widened in shock at Ray's sudden reaction.

"One of my very first memories of Janine."- Ray scratched his forehead. His heart still raced because of the sudden event. He could still hear her voice ringing in his ears.- "Probably on her second week with us. One trap malfunctioned and that annoying class five destroyed the garage. We've been trapped in between her desk and the cabinet for a while before you guys managed to trap the ghost again and free us."

"This is interesting."- Egon commented laconically, tuning his meter.

"Explain 'interesting', please."- the psychologist asked, eying the meter. It had reacted.

Egon stood up and found a cable to connect the meter to his computer- "It happened pretty fast, so I'll need to analyze the data on the computer, but the moment Ray touched the feather it released a rather strong wave."- he sat down in front of the computer and ran the specific program he needed- "I suggest no one directly come in contact with it until further analysis."

That was weird. He had kept the feather in his hand as he had analyzed it before, but none of that had happened. He'd have to go to sleep to have such intense visions. Why?

The computer's inbuilt speakers beeped to signal the completion of the scan.

Ray closed the velvet case and joined Egon in front of the computer - "Hey! Those are my biorhythms!" - he sat down, taking mental note of how the bright monitor made his eyes burn a little, probably because of him still feeling very tired.- "That thing synchronized to my waves and amplified 'em. This is... wow."

"This is a very bizarre reaction indeed."- the physicist picked up the line of thought from where his colleague had interrupted it- "When I ran this particular simple test on myself the meter did not react at all."

"How can that be?"- Ray had troubles not jumping up from his chair and go touch the feather again to see what he'd relive next- "The memory was so real that I still feel the adrenaline rush, it's like I've just lived through it again."

As they kept discussing, throwing in highly complex explanations such as meters not working properly or being too finely tuned, Winston stopped listening and decided to give it some thought on his own. He turned the case over and over in his hands. They all knew there was some kind of special relationship between their friend and their secretary, so he should have been the one getting a stronger reaction. A wild guess popped up in his mind and he just spoke it - "Can it be it reacted differently just because of your different personalities?" - It kinda made sense to him. Egon and Ray were on two completely different emotional extremes. As much as one was introverted, the other was open and outgoing.

The simple answer made silence fall down on them for a moment.

"We have a winner, guys."- Peter commented from the couch he had occupied.- "If this feather doesn't have any power of itself, then it probably needs to feed off its user. The more the user allows it to take, the more it reacts. It would also explain why you need to be asleep to have a vivid experience, Spengs. Sleep is the only moment when your frontal lobe inevitably goes bye-bye."

Peter raised his hand for Winston to high-five him. The other man complied with a satisfied face.

"I don't like where this is heading."- Egon commented, admitting defeat. The blade of the Occam Razor had cut him and Ray up nice and easy- "We should repeat the test on more subjects before drawing any conclusions."

"By 'more subjects' I suppose he means you two."- Ray unnecessarily added, taking the meter in his hands.- "I hold this and you do the fitting, Egon? Do we have a longer cable so you can work on the data in real time?"

Their winning theory back lashing on them, Winston and Peter looked at each other.

"Rock-paper-scissors?"- Peter suggested a quick way to establish who had to go first.

Winston nodded and closed his fist to play.

* * *

It was some minutes past noon when Janine allowed herself to put down the pencil and the calculator and go get some food. She picked up her purse, deciding not to take her light jacket. The weather had become cloudy, but it wasn't cold at all. She locked the street door behind her and walked down the street. The guys had been upstairs all morning, surely coming up with new ways to test her. She wished they would just give up.

As she ate her burger, accompanying it with a generous dose of coke, she wondered why the guys had been so upset about her change. They had trapped the Makeoveris before it could seriously harm anyone and there was no trace of it on herself. Why they couldn't just be happy about her new looks? Were they jealous because of her new classy style? Why would they even care about that?

The thing that bothered her the most was Egon almost completely avoiding her. She had been wanting to ask him out to properly apologize for blasting him– it had never been her intention, it was the Makeoveris taking over her own will. Had she become too beautiful for his tastes? Or was it because of her new personality? Insecurities gone, men couldn't manipulate her anymore, him included. Had he ever really wanted to manipulate her? Did he even have a motive to do that?

"_Men are all the same..._" - she bitterly said to herself.- "_He's no exception._"

The more she got lost in her reasoning, the less she noticed the sky going darker and darker.

She finished her meal, paid for it and stepped out of the cafè. Big heavy drops or rain suddenly poured down from the sky, catching her unprepared. She mentally smacked herself for not taking the jacket and ran for it, managing to get back inside the firehouse before getting completely drenched.

Sneezing, Janine squeezed some water out of her sweater. She took off her shoes and abandoned them next to her desk; the last thing she needed was falling down the wooden stairs because of the muddy soles of her shoes.

She quickly made it to the top floor and snatched a towel from the bathroom to dry her hair. She sneezed again. Her head spun a little, causing her to sit down on the closed toilet and take a few deep breaths. Pressing her back against the wall painfully reminded her about the sore area on her back and her mood sunk even lower. What a great day.

Janine took off her sweater and camisole to look at her back. No bruises. The skin was just of a brighter shade of pink- "Now this is weird..."- she commented, discarding the sweater. The camisole felt almost dry, so she kept it. She wrapped the towel around her head, picked up an aspirin pill from the small cabinet hanging over the sink and swallowed it. Hopefully it would have prevented her symptoms from aggravating.

* * *

Winston's guess had revealed to be very plausible. Both he and Peter had experienced pretty much the same as Ray. Then Ray had tested it again. Then all three of them had tried again and again until enough data was stored into the computer.

One final test remained to verify the theory, and it involved Egon, a bed and the feather.

"I'm not really sleepy, I must say."- the physicist stated as he turned off the heated computer. It was half past noon and he wasn't feeling very hungry. - "You'll have to wait until tonight."

"You could try hard and take a quick nap."- Ray wasn't prone to postpone the final chunk of their experiment.- "You haven't been sleeping much anyways lately, it can only do good."

"You should be resting too, homeboy."- Winston reminded his younger friend. - "Let's eat something and then have you two sleep some."

"I'm not hungry either."- Egon felt the distinct need to be left alone for a while. Those two full hours writing down the guys' accounts of the memories the feather had evoked (and remembering himself much of those apparently irrelevant moments from years past) were weighting on his tired mind. He wanted Janine off his mind for a while.- "You guys go ahead, I'll work a bit more."

There was no more work to do, and the guys knew it. They also knew he hadn't been eating as much as he should have. He wasn't certainly letting himself starve but he kept skipping meals a tad too often, especially because insomnia caused him to sleep at weird times of the day. He surely had carried a huge weight on his shoulders but finally they were able to team up and start demolishing it. Together.

"We'll be back at one thirty. And we'll have your lunch with us."- Peter's voice was neutral, but his eyes shot Egon a meaningful look- "Deal?"

The blond nodded, grateful. - "Deal."

* * *

Janine heard the men exit the lab and walk downstairs, meaning more coffee and more tea were about to be brewed. Her head had cleared up thanks to the aspirin and good warm tea was called for. She spotted the hairdryer's chord from under pile of used towels and pulled it out without touching the damp messy heap. A few inches away from the mess stood the laundry bin, open and empty. She couldn't help but heave a sigh.

Janine took her time drying the perfect waves of her hair. She wondered if she should have kept it curly, or gone back to straight, but damn, she loved the way it now framed her face. Its color was wonderful too. Nothing like Egon's towhead. That shade wouldn't have matched her skin, although she adored it. She had picked a rich golden instead.

One last touch to her fringe and she was good to go, her head set to the tea she needed to get. She reached out and unlocked the door, but she couldn't know she was about to be served her second helping of bad luck for the day.

Her stockings-clad feet slipped on the smooth flooring, causing Janine to lose her balance. Her hand slipped on the wet ceramic of the sink and she fell down hard on one knee, letting out a wail of surprised pain.

* * *

Left alone, Egon sat on the couch and laid down, enjoying the silence. Emptying his mind, he rolled on his side and took the feather out of its velvet cage. His fingers played with its soft barbs and they reacted to his touch, radiating a wave of hope.

The nature of that feather was a rather hard mystery to solve. Why would such contraption exist? Were they otherwise bound to forget about the original Janine? Was that feather one last desperate try of the real Janine to be saved?

_Did I really see her fly away? _

A loud thud and a cry from the nearby room made him jump up. He hastily returned the feather to the drawer and locked it, then covered the distance separating him from the bathroom in a few long steps. The door was closed. He knocked.

"Anyone out there, help please..."- Janine's voice moaned from behind the door.

The man slowly opened the door to find the woman sitting on the floor, holding both of her hands pressed on one knee. She turned her face up to look at the face of her savior.

How ironic, it had to be him.

Egon kneeled down beside her and noticed a few tears rolling down her cheeks. She sure had hit hard. He had to force himself to act as he would have normally done up to a month earlier.

"What happened?"- he inquired, using his handkerchief to dry her face.

"I stupidly slipped and landed with all my weight on this knee."- the pain had momentously vanished the moment when the tips of his fingers had touched her face. For a moment she had feared he would have ignored her, she was glad to see he still cared.

He handed her the handkerchief, she accepted it and blowed her nose.

"Can I see it?"- he asked, eying her knee.

The situation was awkward. She nodded and moved her hands out of the way, using them to prop herself up. Her back was aching too from the blow.

Without giving it much thought, he slid the stocking off her leg. He didn't have any doubts about her wearing thigh-highs. She would wear pantyhose only during winter and the encounter with the Makeoveris Lotsabucks evidently hadn't changed her preferences in clothing.

The knee was already starting to swell and a bruise was due to appear anytime soon.

Egon touched it delicately, inspecting the state of the tissues- "The kneecap seems to be fine. Could you try to bend the leg?"

The woman nodded - "Can I hold on to you as I try?"- she dared to ask. Normally she wouldn't have even thought about asking, but they had grown so cold towards each other...

It took him an extra second to answer her question- "Off course."

There it was that familiar knot to his stomach coming up whenever she'd get too near. He wished he would not have feelings for this Janine. His mind knew she wasn't herself anymore, but his heart would not give up. And he hated it when his heart and his mind clashed.

He acted nonchalantly as she grabbed his arm with both hers and slowly bent and stretched her leg a couple of times.  
She held back a few grunts of pain - "It hurts like crazy. I'm not sure I can stand up, let alone walk on it."  
"I'll take you downstairs. We need to apply ice as soon as possible."  
Awkward situation had just turned even more awkward.

"Egon?"- she ventured, breaking the silence as he gathered her up into his arms.

"Yes?"- he replied, adjusting his balance before lifting her up.

She tightened her grip around his neck and held him closer- "Thanks."

* * *

Downstairs, lunch was slowly coming to its conclusion.

"I wish he'd told us sooner. It would have been less hard on him."- Ray had been feeling gloomy ever since they had left their friend alone in the lab.  
"He had to reach saturation point before telling us."- Peter patted Ray's back- "We're gonna make things right now. I don't know about you guys, but I'm convinced that this feather is the key we've been missing to crack this case."  
"We haven't been checking Janine's biorhythms for days, I hope that class seven component hasn't gone worse."- Ray killed any further conversation by making that comment. Situation was bad.  
"Has he decided to join us for lunch?"- Winston wondered, hearing footsteps approaching the spiraled staircase. He stretched his neck to see over Peter's head.

"Do we have some dry ice left, guys?"- Egon asked as his legs appeared on the first steps of the staircase, followed by another set of legs that were dangling down.

Seeing the physicist come down the stairs with Janine in his arms was sure a peculiar sight given the situation.  
Peter stood up and got closer to the two of them, inspecting the evidently offended knee. Some blood had already come up to surface and tainted the skin of a dark blue color.- "Girl, this is gonna be an epic bruise."  
"And an epic influenza if you don't wear something warmer."- Winston really did not want the virus to spread further after he had carefully avoided being infected.  
"I know, guys..."- she huffed as she was being put down on the messy couch. She found a t-shirt under one pillow and wrapped it around her bare shoulders. Definitely better. - "That sudden rain drenched my sweater good. I had all the intentions to go put it in the dryer, but as you can see gravity didn't approve my plan one bit."

Her bad mood switched to a more positive one as the men took care of her; very soon she found herself laid up on the couch, nicely covered by a blanket, her knee tightly bandaged and refreshed by ice and a cup of boiling hot tea waiting for her on the coffee table - dangerously placed on top of a pile of books. She couldn't help feeling a bit sad because of the physicist disappearing the moment he had left her on the couch.  
He had gone to the kitchen to eat his portion of rice directly from the pot. She couldn't see him, but a few minutes earlier she had heard Peter laugh and comment about it. And she could hear the annoying noise of the spoon scratching the bottom of the pot.

She decided she couldn't waste that wonderful occasion; she had to ask Egon to accompany her home later. He couldn't possibly refuse. She nodded to herself, a determined look on her face, then picked up the cup and drank some of that marvelous jasmine tea.

"We need to get back to the lab and finish something urgent."- Ray told her once the scratching noise had ceased, signaling everyone had eaten their lunch- "Will you be alright?"

She nodded. Aspirin and tea were being a deadly combination and she couldn't hold back a yawn. - "I think I'll sleep some. So I guess I'll be fine."

They promised they would leave the lab's door open so they could hear if she called and then, one by one, they disappeared up the staircase.

* * *

"We should wait for her to be asleep and test the feather on her too."- Ray could barely contain his eagerness to be back to work.

"I don't think that would be a good idea."- Egon sat down on the lab's couch, the black velvet case in his hands- "We still know too little about this feather."

"But it could stir something up inside her and consequently let us know if her soul's still hanging in there, or maybe even..."- the occultist answered back and his voice trailed off as Egon gestured him to continue speaking.

Ray felt like slapping himself - "...even disturb or completely awake the Class Seven entity dormant within her and blow up any chances of saving her."

"Which would be _bad_."- Peter remarked as he threw a light blanket over the couch, burying the physicist in the process.- "Let's first get done with testing the feather on him."

Egon pulled the blanket down from over his head and laid down, frowning. Something was bothering him and he couldn't pinpoint it. - "Wake me up as soon as the meter reacts, please. I don't intend on wasting the entire afternoon sleeping."

"That depends on how fast your inhibitory system shuts down."- Peter teased him as he plugged the meter to the computer, following Ray's orders.

Egon's mind pictured the proverbial light bulb finally finding the power outlet lost somewhere in his brain and brightly light up.- "But off course! Creatures like the Makeoveris Lotsabucks feed off people's most secret insecurities."- he stated, sitting back up.- "Could someone go downstairs and take readings of Janine while she's asleep?"

"You're not thinking her situation aggravates while she's not in control of herself, are you?"- Ray asked, remembering what Peter had said about certain areas of the brain becoming less efficient during sleep.

"She's not a heavy sleeper. Actually she only sleeps about five or six hours a day, and is easily awakened."- Egon wasn't an expert in the field of hypnology, but he was confident of being on the right track.- "A reduced REM activity would explain why her waves are modifying so slowly."

Winston took up another meter and turned it on, pressing then a button to silence it - "You guys do your thing, I'll take this and go investigate."

* * *

Half closing the door of the lab, Winston sat on the first step of the spiraled staircase, listening hard to any noise coming from downstairs. He sort of wished Slimer would pop up from wherever he was hiding to give him a hand, but he knew it wasn't gonna happen. They didn't know what was hiding inside their secretary yet, but the little ghost could feel it and would do anything to stay as little as possible around it. He'd only come out when she'd go back home and that was a real bad sign.

The man slid down a couple of steps and pointed the meter at the sleeping woman. It didn't pick up anything different than the last time they had tested her: a faint Class Seven wave entwined with her new biorhythms He now would have to patiently wait for her brain to start the REM phase of sleep. Which he had no means to detect, so he decided to just sit there and hope for the meter to pick up anything useful. Abandoning the meter on the stairs, he paid a quick visit to the bunk room to retrieve the thick novel book he had started to read only a few days earlier. He sat back down on the stairs and waited.

About half an hour passed before the meter's antennae raised and started to blink faster, causing Winston to fold the upper corner of the page he was reading, close the book and pick the detecting device in his hand. Something was happening. He firmly grabbed the handrail with one hand and leaned onwards as much as his arm let him to take a quick look at Janine. Nothing seemed out of ordinary.

Winston observed the meter for many minutes as sinusoidal waves he couldn't understand appeared on its display. They looked like nothing he had ever seen before.

The waves' intensity reached peak about when the woman started to restlessly toss and turn.

He could clearly hear her gasp and moan a couple of times, then the meter resumed detecting her ordinary biorhythms – meaning the dream (or most likely the nightmare) was over. He heard her mutter something to herself, then nothing more. Probably she had fallen asleep again.

Winston retreated to the lab, where he found Ray and Peter whispering to each other in front of the computer. Egon was still napping on the couch: he had covered his head with the blanket, making himself look like a giant patch worked worm.

"I thought he said he wanted to be waken up."- the black haired man commented in a soft voice.  
"We tried, but he muttered something like 'five more minutes, Mom'. So we let him be."- Peter replied, his eyes glued to the monitor.  
Winston stifled a laughter and joined them, handing Ray the meter.- "You better analyze these readings real quick."

They all fell silent and soon the only noises filling the room were the computer's fan buzzing and the clicking noise of Ray's fingers tapping on the keyboard.

* * *

The occultist had battled for at least one hour to figure Janine's readings out. In the meanwhile Egon had been deeply lost in his beauty sleep and Peter and Winston had reached their secretary downstairs to keep her company – and to record a couple of shows Ray had all the intention to watch later that night.

Eventually the monitor showed the results and Ray just couldn't control the volume of his voice- "Holy...!"

At the sudden exclamation, Egon darted up, got tangled in the blanket and rolled off the couch. He didn't even bother yelping.

The younger man rushed to help him get on his feet and dragged him in front of the computer, made him sit down and handed him his glasses - "Look! _Look_!"

Still dazed by the rough awakening, it took Egon a bunch of minutes to figure out what had upset Ray so much. When realization hit him, he had to cover his mouth and nose with his hands not to let himself go to premature and excessive emotional reactions.

"...You are one hundred percent sure this is correct?"- he managed to ask.

"Two hundreds percent sure."- Ray's hands grasped his friend's shoulders and squeezed them. He hadn't won a Nobel prize yet, but he was damn sure that when it would happen, he'd feel that same exact incredible feeling of exaltation.

"We need to run the test again, collect more information."- Egon opened up another program to properly plot the data and send it to the printer- "Let's call the others."

"...Shouldn't we tell her?"- the occultist asked. Worry had just started to rush back into his system, outshining the excitement of the moment.

"I'll take care of that later."- Egon volunteered. He knew he couldn't make things right by himself, but he felt he had to be the one explaining the situation to her. She needed someone to take her home, he was not going to waste that opportunity to have a private talk with Janine.

* * *

The way the physicist had managed to plot and print the waves left few doubts even to Peter's and Winston's less expert eyes.

Peter would have never imagined that their struggle to understand how the feather worked would have lead them so fast to such a sensational discovery. - "So here's she's just sleeping. Normal NREM stuff."- he traced his finger over the mix of Janine's new biorhythms and class seven emanation they had gotten used to see- "But is this her old biorhythm coming out as soon as she enters REM phase?"

"It's certainly her original biorhythm"- Egon replied showing him another graphic he had printed as reference- "It becomes incredibly clear here, and at the same time the class seven wave gets stronger..."- he tapped his index finger about where they supposed that the REM phase had been at its peak.

"Is this a horror movie or what?"- Peter's forehead furrowed as a consequence of his eyebrows knitting- "It seems like whatever is left of the good Fairy Godmother is eating her essence out right when her mind can put up no barriers."

"She's certainly not aware of this."- it was Ray replying from the couch. Too many hours spent in front of the computer had tired him off and given fever a chance to kick back. He was waiting for paracetamol to work as his colleagues discussed around the table.- "Her body cells have been altered to the point that they'd started to produce different wavelengths. Which would be the cause of her new biorhythm"

"Don't tell me she ain't aware of nothing because of the new waves covering up for the disappearing old ones."- Winston scratched his head. They had been blessed with a second chance, they couldn't mess it up. But what to do?

"That seems very likely." - Egon fidgeted with the rectangular velvet case.- "However the best thing to do right now is to convince her to sleep here so we can properly monitor her. I'll insist on accompanying her back home and talk to her, so tomorrow we hopefully can start working."

"We'll get the EEG ready then."- Ray nodded. He would have preferred not waiting so long, but they couldn't pressure Janine in taking part to the experiment. She definitely needed to be given some time to assimilate the load of bad news Egon was about to deliver her.

* * *

On his part, Egon decided he needed a shower and a change of clothes. He left his friends in the lab and stole a good twenty minutes for himself. The cold water of the shower helped him clear his mind and control the rising anxiety.

He had just got out of the shower when he heard a knock on the door and a voice calling him. He wrapped a towel around his waist and unlocked the door, letting Peter in.

"Ready?"

"Not at all."- the blond replied, rubbing his hair with another towel.

"You were right when you said you still felt her presence."- Peter leaned on the wall, observing him. - "She's never been gone."

"It makes me feel even more uncomfortable."- Egon confessed- "I've been unfair to her. I avoided her, stupidly thinking it wasn't her anymore, basing my judgment solely on the lab results even if I had plenty of reasons to suspect those results were partial."- he paused to get rid of the towels and put on a pair of boxers. They were a bit too loose on his waist. - "Not only I'm a damn coward, but also I must confirm my self-diagnose of being incredibly stupid."

"Then thank God you were given another chance."- Peter distractedly commented, not worrying too much about his friend's latter statement. He knew well how Egon was helplessly hypercritical towards himself, and he also knew that the best cure for him was to go ahead and face the situation.

"I don't believe in God, Peter."- the physicist brushed off the psychologist's statement.- "But I am glad I have a second chance. And I won't waste it."

"From the delighted face she made when I announced her who's the charming prince taking her home, it seems like you're about to be given a handful of extra chances. At many things."

Looking at Peter's reflection on the mirror, Egon noticed the mischievous grin painted on his face - "I wouldn't recommend attempting to have sexual intercourse with someone supposedly hosting a class seven within their body. At least not without a proton pack, but I'm afraid it would ruin the mood."

"Thank you for the mental image, Egon."- Peter decided to leave him to his final preparations and detached himself from the tiled wall- "You'll do fine. Just remember to give us a call in case you decide to stay for the night and run some little expe..."

"I think I get the idea."- Egon cut him off and was very glad that the heat of the room had already made his face go red minutes earlier, so his friend wouldn't have the satisfaction to see him flush.- "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

Peter didn't need to see no blush appear on the physicist's face to know what was going on in his mind. He waved and exited the room, snickering.


	3. Chapter 2

The trip to Janine's home revealed to be as awkward as their encounter in the bathroom some hours earlier. And New York's traffic didn't help them at all. They got bottled several times in the rain, trying to come up with any topic of conversation and eventually settling for a neutral discussion about the lousy weather. They managed to park the car and waited for the rain to ease up before getting out. She handed him her keys and he piggybacked her into the building (the wet bricks of its facade had darkened to a depressing shade of graphite gray) and up the stairs.

When Janine's feet touched the floor again – right in front of her apartment's door- she opened the many locks keeping her place safe and slowly walked in, balancing most of her weight on her good leg - "Wanna stay for a coffee?"

Egon nodded and politely accepted her offer, closing the door behind him.

He observed her as she carefully took the few steps separating her from the nearest armchair to get rid of her purse and jacket: the knee wasn't as swollen as before, but it looked like it hurt a lot.

She acted nonchalantly, discarding the pain. It wasn't something she couldn't handle.

The old couch was gone, as well as the old armchairs and probably also a bunch of other stuff Egon couldn't remember – he had never been particularly interested in interior design- but that he felt had been replaced by more costly new elements of design. About ten bouquets adorned the renovated living room. He eyed the card on the nearest one, it carried the name of a man. So it wasn't wrong to conclude that she had at least as many admirers as the number of those bouquets.

Or maybe she only had one that really loved flowers, but the fit of silent and sudden jealousy kept directing his thoughts on the 'more than one' hypothesis.

"Make yourself at home."- Janine went straight for the kitchen and filled the kettle. She didn't know what to do to make that sensation of discomfort between them go away and totally hated it.

He resisted the urge to inspect every single bouquet in the room and followed her, mentally asking his limbic system to please stop trying to piss him off.

Seeing her guest hadn't taken a seat yet and that he was still looking at the living room area, she wondered if he had noticed the change- "You should try the new couch. Real leather and properly stuffed cushions. Nothing like the old one."

He was about to say something when he heard a yelp. Janine had opened the nearest cupboard and stretched to find two clean mugs on the upper shelves, causing her knee to give her hell. A hand quickly prevented one mug from falling and an arm came around her waist. She sighed in relief and leaned backwards on him.- "I had almost forgot how useful is to have you around. Thanks."

"Uhm... you're welcome."- the physicist felt the familiar sensation of every single muscle in his back and neck go stiff because of her being too close. He took note of how the shape of her torso had changed. She surely had become perfect, according to the current canons for feminine beauty. No wonder a forest of flowers had appeared in her living room: what man wouldn't want to have the privilege to win the exclusive attentions of such a beautiful creature? - "It would be best if you rested. I'll take care of the coffee."

Who would reject her indeed? Janine felt like that was the ultimate test to be completely satisfied with her new found artificial beauty. She didn't care about other men buzzing around her. She had gone through it all to have him, and she was determined to prove herself right.

She swiftly turned to face him. The combination of her having become taller and the 4' stiletto shoes she had refused to take off made her almost as tall as him, letting her easily pass her arms around his neck, her face coming really close to him. Blocked between her and the kitchen island, he couldn't get away.

"Janine, uhm..."- he needed to make her desist, but at the same time he didn't want to upset her. His unfit words had been the final spark to fuel the access of rage leading her straight into the Makeoveris Lotsabucks' trap. And it was likely that she was still acting under its influence.

"I missed you."- her hands found his hair, grasping it gently.

He felt the need to put some distance between their bodies, he could have easily taken hold of her forearms and pushed her away - something made him change his mind.

Had her eyes just switched back to their original green color as she had spoken those words?

He frowned, feeling his insides ache. It couldn't be the demon talking. It was her.

That made his neuones disconnect and he gave in to her, letting his hands rest on her hips and leaning his forehead against hers - "I missed you too."- he admitted.

Something inside her switched off. The compulsion to have her way with him at all costs had just vanished, leaving her puzzled. Sometimes she felt as if she was becoming schizophrenic, as if two different persons were commanding her body. Egon took advantage of her silence to let himself go to a brief moment of affection, rubbing his nose against hers. She let out a little delighted giggle, got quiet again, kissed him.

The couple got lost exchanging superficial kisses and playing with each other's lips only to be interrupted by a thick cloud of steam investing them and causing them to split up and try to understand what was going on. It took them a second or two to remember about the abandoned kettle.

"I don't think we'll be drinking any coffee."- Egon stated as he turned off the appliance and noticed how the water had almost completely evaporated.

"Then let's just get to the couch and pretend we're drinking some."- Janine playfully proposed and, to her utter surprise, he didn't question her suggestion and lifted her up, carrying her to destination.

He put her down on one end of the wide, costly piece of furniture then sat down at the opposite end. Janine had a better position in mind and moved to sit by him, resting her sore leg on the coffee table. Something felt wrong again. She looked at his face and her throat closed seeing the deadly serious expression he had put up.

He inhaled deeply. It was about time he did what he had to - "I need to talk to you, Janine."

She didn't like the somber tone of his voice one bit. It was a change so sudden that it felt like they hadn't just spent the last five minutes petting like teenagers. She didn't know what to expect. Was he gonna tell her it was best to break up? The way he was suddenly paying attention to her again was definitely suspicious. Had she become too much for him?

Her mind could only follow that vicious line of thinking. She clearly heard a voice scream in her head:

_Don't succumb to his mind games. He's a man. All men are the same. Beware._

"I'm listening."- she said, putting up a neutral face and keeping her voice steady.

"I sincerely don't know how to start."- he confessed. In the past month he hadn't become any better in the art of opening up his heart to the people close to him.

"You've never been good at all with this stuff."- she couldn't prevent that harsh comment from slipping out of her mouth. What was wrong with her?

Her observation didn't surely help him organize his speech, and he fell silent, desperately looking for the right words. She overcame the urge to slap herself and patted his wrist reassuringly. 'Don't scare him off' had always been her first key rule to their relationship.- "Just say it as it comes out."

He produced a little embarrassed smile -"I have to apologize to you."

"Apologize for what?"- Janine asked, surprised.

"I want to apologize because of my cowardly behavior. I could have avoided you a lot of trouble if I only had been more honest with myself. And with you."

There. The most difficult part of it all had finally come out.

So he was talking about that night. She sure wasn't expecting him to bring that matter up and she didn't really want to discuss about it.

"It's OK, Egon."- Janine nodded- "I'm happy about how things went. That bitch of the Fairy Godmother is forever trapped and my wishes came true. And I am not turning into a demon. I won, you guys won, she lost."

"Are you serious?"- he couldn't hold back that exclamation.- "Did you really need to endanger your life for..."- he looked at her body, then resumed looking into her eyes- "...that."

"Excuse me?"- she sat up straightening her back, her face going red- "So this is the problem. I'm still not enough for your tastes, am I? Or have I become too much? Is this what you're trying to say?"

"Janine..."- he kept his voice calm, cursing his own stupidity. He just had to provoke her. Very smart. He got immediately cut off as she pushed him with both her hands.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it!"- rage was overriding the initial wave of frustration as she kept hitting him- "What the hell is wrong with you? I've suffered like crazy to become perfect! But perfect evidently isn't damn enough for you, is it?!"

He took hold of her wrists and held her close to restrain her. She was putting up a pretty good fight, he was afraid that she would have hurt her knee even more by thrashing about like that. She fought harder, he tightened his grip. He could faintly hear the muffled beep of his meter coming from his jacket. Not good. Extremely not good.- "Janine, calm down! Listen to me!"

"I hate you!"- she finally cried out, unable to free herself and giving up- "I hate you, I hate you..."- she repeated over and over, sobbing, letting out the pain she'd been keeping bottled up deep down inside- "You did this to me..."

The beeping of the meter slowly died as she cried her pain out. He dared to ease his hold on her only after the noise had ceased completely. He wasn't sure what he could say or do, so he slid out of his shoes, shifted sideways to rest his legs on the couch and made her sit between them. She let him move her then curled up in a ball, still weeping.

He caressed her hair in silence.

"I hate you."- Janine moaned some minutes later, breaking that silence full of tension.

It hurt to see he had taken her to that extreme. He needed to make things right. He wanted to. He focused and as he spoke he felt like he had just taken a leap off a very tall building with no cords to brake his fall.- "I love you."

"You don't have to say that to please me."- she muttered, feeling offended.

"Don't you think I would have spoken those words earlier if I had just wanted to satisfy you?"

"There's a meter in your jacket. I heard it. How do I know you're not just trying to keep whatever is inside me from breaking out and kill you?"- Janine's voice was nothing more than a thin whisper. So she wasn't going schizo at all. There was indeed something inside her. It couldn't be otherwise... it explained why the guys would keep testing her over and over. It explained her mood swings and her infinite mental ramblings. It all made sense.

"I won't stop you if you'll try."- he wasn't afraid or nervous anymore. He had accepted his feelings for her, with all the irrationality that they would carry into his aseptic, logic approach to life.

She stayed silent, her breathing still ragged from the struggle and the crying.

"I don't care what you look like, Janine. Perhaps a normal man would judge you mainly on your appearance, but then it can very well be I am not normal."- all of the things he had ever wanted to tell her just flowed out of his mouth with ease now.

She turned to look at him in plain disbelief.

"I fell in love with your brilliant intellect, your wits, your strength, your courage. And to see them fade away, sacrificed to obtain exterior beauty causes me a deep pain. I know I am being selfish, but this is how I am."- he paused, blushing a little and avoiding her stare as an additional thought popped up in his mind- "...and... and I didn't mind your old looks. I have always thought of you as a very attractive female."

Janine bit her lip hard not to cry again, even if for a different reason. She already knew all of those things. He had never spoken them to her, but she had understood them anyways a long time before.

All of those doubts she had suddenly started having, aggravating her frustration and insecurities. They all had been a product of the control that the Fairy Godmother had kept gaining on her. Realization hit her like a slap in the face, she felt a sensation of calm pervading her chest.

She didn't want her new body anymore. She didn't need it. She had never needed it.

Janine couldn't know, but her irises had just reverted to green.

* * *

"Talk to us, Charlie."

Peter plopped down on Janine's chair after pushing the viva-voce button of the phone.

"We'll play some other time, Peter. I don't have much time."- Egon's voice sounded rather metallic. It was about time to buy a new phone, but they kept forgetting about it.

Ray cut the pleasantries.- "Did you have that talk with her?"

"I did. She agreed to let us test her. She suggested we'd take care of it right now, but I'd rather not upset her further for tonight."

The three men looked at each other. There had to be a valid reason to refuse such an offer.

"Did something happen?"- the occultist was the one to voice their thoughts.

"I kind of messed up at one point and almost released whatever's inside her."- Egon candidly admitted - "The situation seems to be relatively safe right now, I'll stay for the night to monitor it."

A voice faintly called, making the physicist lower the receiver. His colleagues heard a 'coming!" being yelled back.- "As you might have guessed, I've got to go."

"Call us if anything makes you change your mind and we'll be there in a second." - Winston would have felt more relaxed if he had asked them to join him.

"We might even give you a discount on the storage fee."- Peter joked, but he really just wanted to get on the car and go standby out of Janine's apartment.

* * *

Egon put down the receiver and leaned his back on the couch's rest. He was confident nothing bad was going to happen, yet the talk with the guys had left him with a vague sensation of anxiety.

The smell of freshly delivered pizza distracted him. He stood up and joined his host in the kitchen.

"Are you sure you want to spend the night here?"-Janine had abandoned her outfit to wear a much more comfortable combination of sweat pants and t-shirt. She was sitting at the table, fidgeting with the meter- "You said this thing gets stronger while I dream. What if something happens?"

"As you can see, the meter isn't detecting anything different from your standard readings."- he opened one of the pizza boxes, closed it again and put it in front of her, taking the other one for himself.

She put the meter aside and opened her box. That pizza sure smelled good. - "Promise me you'll call the guys the very second this thing vaguely detects anything different."

"I can promise that."- he replied. Then he eyed his own pizza. He wasn't really hungry. Over the past weeks his normal eating and sleeping routines had turned into randomly distributed events. It would have taken him a while to go back to old habits. But she had insisted on paying for their delivery, so the less he could do was to eat at least half of his portion.

That goal set in his mind, he attacked the first slice.

On the other hand, Janine's mind was greatly eased by the food. She hadn't had anything to eat since lunch and her 'discussion' with him had tired her out quite a bit. She ate eagerly, using her hands. Her bottle of cola finished, she eyed Egon's untouched one.

"We share half?"- she asked, nodding towards the small bottle.

He didn't feel like drinking anything else than water, but he didn't refuse. The dark liquid inside the bottle was producing many little lines of tiny bubbles, meaning it had been shaken hard. He decided to hold the bottle over the sink, just in case.

"So... are you trying to land a modeling job or what?"- she asked, noticing how he had barely eaten half of his pizza in the time she had devoured hers. It looked like he had lost weight too.

"It would probably be a better remunerative job than the one I currently have."- he tried to dodge that topic, it greatly embarrassed him. He had troubles accepting the fact that he had given in so easily to depression, sabotaging her rescue. His hands distractedly opened the bottle: a loud fizzle and his shirt and pants feeling wet made him mutter the most horrendous Sumerian profanity he knew.

"Have I just won a free ticket for a strip-tease?"- she purred from the table behind him.

"Unless you own any piece of clothing I could use while my stuff's in the washer, I guess so."- he sighed, trying to tampon the wet area on his stomach and thighs with a dishcloth.

He wondered if strippers had a better paycheck than the one he currently could allow himself to have.

"As much as I'd love to see that..."- she walked closer to him and started to unbutton his shirt with precise, rapid movements of her fingers- "... I'll be a good girl and find you something to wear."

Egon let her take his shirt, tucked the meter in his back pocked and followed her to the bedroom.

He placed the precious device on the nightstand and sat on the bed, reluctantly taking off his undershirt. He threw it on the floor where his shirt already laid. Better to be half naked than to feel the disgustingly sticky and chilly sensation of wet cotton on his skin.

She was busy rummaging in her dresser. She could kneel with a tad more ease, meaning the painkiller and bruise cream had worked nicely.

"I heard you started modeling, by the way."- he said. Even if not as radically as the living room, also the bedroom had gone through some remodeling; she definitely couldn't have afforded all those expenses with her usual salary. One of those damn bouquets adorned one shelf. Red roses.

"It was more like a one timer. I was noticed by some fashion photographer at a party. He wanted to hire me for a couple of shots... the model he was due to work with was sick or something. He paid very good money and I could keep the clothes."- she replied- "It was fun, I've always wanted to know what it felt like."

"Will you miss this life?"- he rubbed his arms, it was starting to feel cold. Once they would manage to root the demon out from inside her, he wasn't sure she would have regained her old, more modest looks. But it seemed very likely, given the fact that willpower alone had restored her eyes and part of her original personality. But then again, it could be a temporary change. They knew so little about that particular class of entities and how their spells worked.

"How do you mean?"- Janine asked, handing him a polo shirt and a pullover.

In the past she had offered him to use one of her drawers to store some of his clothes, but he had never found the guts to accept. Maybe it had felt too much like commitment.

So she just had kept purposely forgetting to give him back the pieces of clothing he would either forget at her place or that she would borrow from him at the firehouse. Over time, she had successfully filled said drawer with a number of tops. Next step was to convince him to add in some bottoms and underwear out of his own free will and make the little wardrobe fully functional - "I don't remember whose pants are these, but they should fit."- she added, spreading a pair of gym shorts in front of her to check the size. They didn't look like his style at all.

"They might be the ones Peter kept looking for a couple of months ago."- he stated, accepting the pants and standing up with all the intentions to go change in the adjoined bathroom. It happened that she would need extra clothes when things got slimier than usual, so she had free access to their wardrobes when such a situation would happen. He remembered to answer to her question. He did it in a very la conical fashion - "Well, you're receiving a lot of attentions."

Janine didn't miss him glance sideways at the roses. So he was jealous. As much as she hated her Fairy Godmother, she had to admit she was kinda right about men. No degree of education could override their innate possessive nature.

She didn't dislike him going territorial about her one bit, though.

"Go change before you get sick, you jealous person."- she laughed, playfully pushing him towards the bathroom's door.

* * *

Alone in the bathroom, Egon couldn't help but feeling silly. He blocked the upcoming stream of thoughts questioning his rights to feel jealous. He had always been the one having troubles even vaguely admitting there was something between them.

He took off his stained pants, put on the clothes she had given him, transferred his wallet to the pocket of the new pants. He couldn't win any fashion contest, but at least he wouldn't have spent the evening in wet clothes. Or in boxers and socks.

His back brushed against the closed curtain of the shower-bath. Water lightly splashed. He opened the curtain to see that the bath was filled.

Egon didn't question his instinct and walked out of the room at once, going to pick up his meter.

"Egon, what's wrong?"- she was waiting for him on the bed, massaging her knee with more bruise cream.

"Nothing yet."- he replied, going back to scan the room. The water didn't give off any particular reading.

"Oh, that."- Janine commented from the doorway. Her voice revealed a certain degree of discomfort- "It's nothing, I must have forgot to unplug it after I bathed. No supernatural things going on."

It didn't take a rocket scientist to notice how the water was clean, certainly not left over from a bath or a shower. He looked at her, cocking one eyebrow.

"I... I don't know how to explain this, ok?"- she blurted out- "I feel better if I know it's filled. Don't ask me why."

The man wasn't surprised by the meter reacting faintly to her suddenly getting upset. Demons of the Makeoveris Lotsabucks' kind fed over people's vanity and needed bodies of water wide enough for someone to look at their own reflection to successfully drain their energy.

"A-and also... I've been needing to bathe more often these past days."- Janine added, trying not to let the fact that the meter had activated upset her more- "That bed's killing my back and bathing in cold water eases the pain."

"The bed is killing your back."- he echoed her words, left rather puzzled by her claim.

"Yeah. When I wake up there's always a swollen red spot below my shoulder blades."- she replied, one hundred percent convinced of the logic in her words. She lifted the back of her top and bent over the sink to show him. Twisting one arm behind her back, she pointed at the accused spot - "See? My skin's more sensitive now, so the springs in that old mattress are definitely too hard for it."

Unseen, he muted the meter and pointed it at her back before inspecting it with one hand. The strap of her bra was in the way, but the swelling wasn't hard to see. Egon's fingers could feel something flat and hard right under her skin -it felt like two round and small bone stubs- making a bunch of red flags pop up in his mind. She appeared not to be able to feel the stubs, signaling how the entity still had a great power over her. It wasn't a surprise either to see the meter's antennae go up as it reacted to the things on her back.

"Oh I see what you mean. It really must be the mattress's fault."- he lied, patting her back to make her lower her t-shirt and stand straight again.- "I'm sorry, I only wanted to be sure that you're safe."

"It's okay. It feels better to know everything's fine."- she produced a satisfied smile, her discomfort fading off at once.

He had to take her away from the water. Most of all, he knew he needed to prevent her (and thus, the entity) from sensing his state of intense worry. Luckily he was a pro at repressing his feelings. He powered down the meter to implicitly confirm that there was nothing weird going on in that bathroom and reciprocated her smile.

"Shall I put my clothes into the washer and then we share what is left of the pizza?"

She liked his suggestion and said she would have waited for him in the kitchen.

* * *

It would have been Thai food night at the firehouse, hadn't Ray's stomach still not been ready for it.

They settled for a healthy, plain looking vegetable soup.

Ray's condition may have sabotaged the junk food, but it also made a great excuse to ditch the table and eat all together on the couch of the rec area, sipping the soup directly from the bowl and watching the shows they had recorded for him earlier that afternoon.

The phone laid silent on the coffee table- still cluttered by the ordinate mess of psychology tomes no one had bothered to remove. Kubler-Ross' famous book about loss and grief topped the tallest pile. It was the book Egon had been reading the night before, only a few minutes away from his talk with Peter.

"Guys, we can't just stay here and watch TV while Egon's out there unarmed."- Winston bluntly spoke out sometime in the middle of the third show. It was past midnight, and it had stopped raining.

"We should have told him to take the pager and send us a message every hour, so we could've known for sure everything's fine."- Ray moaned, tucked under a blanket and fighting the urge to sleep. The meds had made him so tired- "Shall we make up an excuse and call? But then he'd think we don't trust him."

"We can risk that. He couldn't deny that this whole matter has distorted his sense of judgment"- Peter was sipping his drink with a little too much thought. - "I can't believe it took him so long to show us that feather, we could have put an end to this immediately. Or maybe I can believe it, since I've seen it happen."- he paused, then added- "We all messed up big time. We should have forced him to be with us instead of letting him deal with it his way. We should have been closer to each other, instead of letting this whole matter tear us apart."

None of the four of them was a stranger to grief, they all had their share of it in the past.

That had been their first time dealing with such an uncertain situation, fooled by the evidence leading to the conclusion that Janine wasn't with them anymore, her body turned into a mere shell to incubate a demon.

Peter wouldn't have easily forgotten himself for letting his friend slip into depression, foolishly thinking that it was only human and that he would have recovered by himself. Insomnia, anhedonia, signs of anorexia: everything lead to the conclusion that the blow had been too hard for Egon to take. The psychologist thought back to the times he had tried to talk Egon into opening up to him, only to give up at the first displays of discomfort. 'He's not ready yet', Peter had kept thinking to himself. 'don't push him, he knows what he's doing'. Truth was that he himself had been too focused on his own pain to care properly for him, and maybe for Ray and Winston too.

They all had passively surrendered to their first great defeat as Ghostbusters, they had forgot to stick together through it.

The recorded show kept running in the background as Peter fell silent and got lost into his own guilty trips.

"No point in playing the blame game right now, Pete."- Winston turned off the television and the VCR, no one was in the mood for leisure anymore anyways. It wasn't hard to guess what was going on into that man's head and he didn't like it one bit. They sure had fucked up good, but they were still in time to make things right and to learn from their own mistakes- "And no point in staying here wrecking our brains out about what may or may not happen to those two. We know Egon's not been thinking straight. What the hell, none of us had been thinking straight since that night. He might be depressed, upset, anything, but he sure ain't turned stupid all of a sudden. I'm sure he won't endanger himself or Janine."

"Maybe we're overthinking it." - the occultist freed his shoulders from the blanket, it was starting to feel hot in there. It wasn't really useful to sulk, they had to do something - "We have no way to know if everything's fine, and calling might not be a good idea. Let's go check. A little check from outside the apartment building. He won't know and we'll feel better."

"I would feel better only if I spent the whole damn night out of that building with a meter, a proton pack and a burger."- Peter loved the idea, and his eyes showed it- "Ray, you and Slimer will stay here in case he calls."

"But it was my idea."- Ray moaned- "And I could put on something warmer and... and we could also keep Ecto's heat on. If anything happens while we're staking the place out, we'd be on it before Egon could even reach the phone."

"And then we could take you straight to the hospital, cause after a whole night in the car and in this weather you'd get a fever so high you'd risk to self-combust."

Ray huffed at Peter's fast and quite spot-on remark, hanging his head in defeat. The phone ringing made him start.

A quick look to each other, then Winston, being closer, took the call.- "Ghostbusters."

* * *

Knowing that there were some extra bones growing on Janine's back didn't make Egon feel any more prone to eating. Actually the faint smell of the cold pizza had caused his stomach to close.

"You can have the rest, if you want. I'm done."- he said after forcing himself to eat a small slice.

He washed it down with the little left of his coke.

"You don't like it?"- Janine asked, surprised. They had delivered them a really good pizza. Well, as good as delivered pizza can get. And it wasn't like him to be picky about food.

"I've been quite busy lately, so I've been eating less than usual." - he made up a plausible lie, hoped she wouldn't have seen right through it.

"Well, then this time you've taken it too far. You need to eat. There's no way a grown man your size can survive on half a pizza."- she frowned, not doubting his words. She had seen him survive only on water and snacks before, usually during bad emergencies or whenever he'd be too taken into some new research to lose time eating.- "You want me to cook something else? Or at least let me offer you something sweet."

A few minutes later, Egon found himself sitting with his legs crossed on the couch and staring at the giant cup of ice cream she had just handed him. It wasn't healthy, but his stomach had opened up again the moment she had pronounced the word 'ice-cream' and he could have really used some extra calories. Besides, he really loved the brand she used to buy.

She sat by him with her own cup, added some chocolate syrup and passed the bottle to him. He showered his own ice cream in syrup too, put the bottle down on the coffee table and raised his cup.- "Cheers?"

Janine laughed and made her cup tingle against his- "Cheers."

They got silent as they spooned their way to the bottom of the cups, television to keep them company. A movie was being broadcasted, she had been wanting to watch it. It wasn't his kind of movie, but he couldn't deny that the subplot about a series of genetic experiments gone terribly wrong was interesting; the lab that had been set up for those scenes was close to perfection.

Big, well organized, perfectly white lights, a squad of highly trained personnel.

Just why did they have to ruin it all? Why a centrifuge had to be placed right next to a... strange looking microwave thingie with a bunch of gears and antennae randomly (and badly) glued all over? He adjusted his glasses and leaned onwards to take a better look at that abomination. He couldn't say the devices he built were ever meant to be pretty, but at least they always looked functional. Definitely the scenographer hadn't bothered consulting an expert.

He couldn't resist commenting about it, and so he did.

No response from the lady next to him.

"Janine?"

"Yeah?" - she replied after a second or two. She also noticed that there was no ice cream left in her cup, so she let the cold cup rest on the floor, then resumed staring blankly at the screen, biting her nails.

"You ok?"- he eyed the meter for a millisecond. All was calm and silent. Good.

"Yeah."

Silence again. Someone screaming from inside the television.

Baffled by her blank reaction, Egon tried again.

"Janine?"

"Yeah?"

"You sure you're ok?"

"Yeah."

No evident dissimilarities from his first try. Plan B needed. He turned off the television, looked at her. She hadn't moved a muscle. He lost a tad too many seconds wondering if he should have pinched her or just poked a spot on her side that used to be ticklish up to a month earlier.

"Egon?"

"Yeah?" - he was glad he didn't have to poke her to get a response. The demon could have found it impolite and he still hadn't come up with any good ideas about where to find a particle accelerator inside her apartment to craft himself a makeshift proton pack.

"Can I tell you something?"- she finally turned her head to look at him.

"Please do."

"I had been thinking about our conversation. You said you could have avoided me a lot of trouble if you had been more honest. That's really not true. You have never stopped being honest with me, you've always been, your own way."- Janine hesitated, then moved closer to grab his arm and rest her head on his shoulder. - "It's true that before today you've never told to my face those things you confessed, I know you're not the talker type. And that you're not very skilled when coming to romantic relations."-she held tighter on his arm- "But it's ok. I've learned to understand what's going on inside that head of yours even if you don't speak it. I want you to know that I'm sorry for the pain I caused you. And... even if I don't know who I am anymore... or if I'll ever get out of this alive..."

It wasn't hard to foresee what she was getting at, even for him.

Just he didn't have any mental strength left to let himself go to another openhearted moment with her. So he got back to his usual, good old non-verbal ways and pulled her in for an embrace.

She snuggled up against him and they just cuddled for a while.

One thing lead to another and so he found himself shirtless for the second time of the night, too busy getting her damn bra out of the way to notice they were probably getting too far.

Or maybe he had noticed but just didn't let himself care.


	4. Chapter 3

"So he calls us, orders us to call him back and make it look like we gotta talk to him and nothing's happening but he wants us to get there and fetch him a proton pack."

That whole matter made little sense to Peter. But he was glad they hadn't to do things behind the physicist's back. And he also had the time to get some burgers.

"I've already told you at least five times, yeah."- Winston laughed at his colleague's puzzled expression.

They had left Ray home, convincing him it really was better if he just rested and let his body deal the final blow to the fastidious virus that had infected him. Slimer had promised them to keep a close eye on the occultist and not let him do anything stupid – at the cheap price of a couple of cheeseburgers.

It was 1.30 a.m. when Ecto's engine got turned off. They had set an appointment in front of the apartment building's main door, apparently Egon wanted to talk with them about something too.

"Is that him?"- Winston couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"It seems so."- Peter adjusted around his shoulders the straps of the proton pack they were about to deliver, picked up the paper bag containing his junk food and reached for the door handle. He had a thought. Activated the meter that laid on the seat between them.- "He's not possessed."

"Does he need to be possessed to have a cigarette?"- the other man asked, not knowing if to be amused or worried.- "Anyway, let's go."

Sitting on the stairs leading to the entrance door, Egon was thoughtfully smoking his second cigarette ever. He had tried one years before. The summer before college probably. He couldn't remember exactly. He liked to look at the smoke dance and dissolve, it made him feel strangely at peace.

The air was humid and cold, but he felt pleasantly warm. He was wearing again the clothes he had left the firehouse with, then his jacket and a scarf he had found on the coat rack before leaving the apartment.

He had left her napping in her bed, telling her the guys were in the area for a bust and needed his opinion on something. She had muttered to take her keys and to be back soon, then had fallen back into light sleep. The pack of cigarette hadn't been planned. He had taken a glimpse of it on the mantlepiece as he searched the living room for the keys and snatched it out of a whim.

A girlfriend of her was a smoker and seldom left one pack at Janine's to use when she'd go visit.

"Hey handsome, do you have one to spare?"- Peter asked, sitting by him. Egon handed him the whole package and a box of matches.- "Thanks."

Two more cigarettes lit up, the three of them sat together on the stairs.

"So... what's going on here? You decided to start smoking?" - it was Peter again asking, amused by the unusual sight of his friend breaking his own comportmental code.

"Not really." - Egon replied, blowing out the smoke. Dark circles had appeared under his eyes. He felt tired, but not sleepy.- "I just felt like it."

"Is Janine fine?"- Winston hoped it wouldn't have been a difficult talk. The guy was being particularly telegraphic.

"She's not worse, so I guess she's fine. As fine as one can be when extra bones are starting to form on their back."- Egon let the tiny cylinder of paper and tobacco dangle a bit from his lips as he rubbed his hands together. He hadn't thought about gloves. - "She's not aware of it. Tomorrow we'll need to investigate on that too."

"What the hell?"- the brown haired man almost spit his cigarette- "Is she growing wings?"

"It may very well be."- Egon dug up a piece of paper from the pocket of his jacket and handed it to Winston- "I'd like you to give this to Ray, so he'll know what instruments to get ready. We'll need to perform a full body scan to understand what is going on in her skeletal structure."

"So why do you need a pack? You afraid something might happen while she sleeps?"- Winston let the piece of paper slide into his front pocket. Sure Egon looked strangely calm for someone feeling the need of a proton pack in the middle of the night.

"If anything was bound to happen, it would have already. I'd just feel better if I had it in case I fall asleep while I keep watch and would later need to act fast, that's it."

"You look incredibly tired, man. What have you been doing?"

Winston's inquisitive eyes caused the blond man to shift his glance uncomfortably.

"Nothing special. It was an eventful day and I haven't been sleeping much, so..."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait."- Peter threw away the butt of his cigarette. It landed into a puddle and fizzled out.- "Is that a hickey?" - he pulled the scarf away from his friend's neck to get a clear view- "It IS a hickey! What the hell have you two been doing?"

"Well, that's a very good question."- Egon covered his neck again with the floral scarf.- "Under these circumstances, perhaps the most correct term would be a particular case of some sort of 'threesome'."

To Egon's collected reply, his friends couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, yell or plainly bitch slap him, so they just stared at him in bewilderment. Not only they weren't expecting him to confess so candidly that he had just had some kind of romantic contact with Janine, but also that he had done it well knowing that a potentially deadly entity was still stuck inside her.

Yet it was almost to be expected. The times he'd fuck up, he'd always do it in grand style.

No one was saying anything, so the physicist resumed talking: -"I wasn't trying to endanger myself on purpose. Let's say that... we had a real personal talk. Which led to other personal kinds of things. Let's then say that my head just stopped cooperating at a certain point. When it resumed working properly I panicked a bit and called you guys. Right now I am just very thankful to be alive."- he scratched his forehead- "I wouldn't want to push my luck too much now by going back upstairs without some proper equipment."

"You're not about to suggest that the class seven influenced the activity of your lobe, are you?"- Peter thought back at their exchange in the bathroom, hours earlier. How ironic. If his hunch was right, he hoped those two had used some ordinary kind of protection at least.

"Not at all. My brain just seems to enjoy sabotaging me a lot when Janine is concerned. Took me a while to realize."

That last statement made Winston chuckle- "Better late than never."

They gave it a laugh and shared the burger that had been laying forgotten on a step – giving Peter an excuse to acquire another one on the way back home; that vegetable soup hadn't placated his appetite at all.

* * *

Egon gone, Janine couldn't nap for more than a couple of minutes. She didn't want to sleep. Didn't want to dream and give the demon an occasion to use her soul as a late night snack.

Her bladder decided it was time for a pit-stop, so she got out of bed, took the meter with her and went to the bathroom.

She remembered about the water filling her shower-bath.

'_Don't mind it. Don't look at it._'- she fiercely thought. She moved the closed curtain to check if the water was still there, but nothing splashed. Her attention was caught by a wet towel hanging from the shower ring: Egon had showered and got rid of the damn water.

Her lips curled up in a really satisfied smile.

A quick wash and she felt much better. A little water had gathered around her ankles, somehow the bath had been plugged, but she didn't remember putting the black rubber plug back into its hole. She wanted to pull the plug but something inside her ordering not to do it was stronger.

The meter beeped.

Janine looked at her reflection on the water and thought- '_Oh, hello there. I don't want to meet you just yet, so I won't touch your water and you will go back to sleep, alright?_'

The beeping lingered a few more seconds, then died out. Good.

She stepped out, dried herself and put on her robe. Her back ached again, she shrugged it off.

Coming to think of it, that damn thing had been there all through her close encounter with her man.

'_I hope you enjoyed the show, bitch_.' - she mentally said as she left the bathroom, feeling an unpleasant mix of embarrassment and anger. She hesitated, re-opened the door, picked up the key, closed it again and locked it from the outside. Her mind felt clearer.

It had been a long evening, but it had worked better than ten years worth of therapy.

Evidence lead to the conclusion that sex had never been in Egon's plans for that night. But she was equally sure that he had insisted on postponing further tests on her to the following day just to have an excuse to spend the night alone with her, see if his presence would have ignited any more changes in her condition. He had probably taken that decision somewhere around dinner time, else he wouldn't have left home without any serious equipment. Reckless move. But at the moment she was grateful for his recklessness.

Janine poked her head out of the window, gave just a quick look around: she could see Ecto parked on the other side of the street. She could also hear some quiet talking, but couldn't see nobody. The guys had probably gathered up close to the main entrance, she'd have to go to the living room's window to see them, and she didn't feel like it. The air was cold, made her shiver.

She closed the curtains, tidied up the room a bit, made a quick trip to the kitchen to drink some water. Getting back to the bedroom, she threw an extra blanket over the bed, dropped the robe and sneaked back under the covers. Her spot wasn't warm anymore.

As she waited for the blankets to make her body temperature rise again, she curled up in a fetal position. The dark was making her sleepy.

A click and the lamp on the nightstand projected its soft yellow light on the ceiling. It felt better.

The sheets still smelled like sex.

It'd been so long since her last time with him. So long she had almost forgot what it felt like to smell their joined scents on the cheap cotton of her favorite set of sheets. She wondered if that had been the last time: there were no guarantees that anything could be done for her anymore. That thought made her want to cry, she resisted. Enough crying had been going on already.

She felt something had changed inside him that night.

Or maybe it had changed the night the Fairy Godmother had lost the battle, but won the war.

"The hell I'm gonna give up now that we're so close."- she said aloud to herself.

The locks on the main door unlocked, interrupting her thinking.

The locks made noise again as they were being locked back. The keys tingled as they were put down on a wooden surface, then footsteps approached. They sounded heavier.

"I'm glad they gave you a proton pack."

She welcomed him back with those words, sitting up in bed, sheets gathered on her chest to shield her naked self from the cool air of the night. She hadn't managed to get any warmer, but it wasn't cold enough to convince her to turn on the heating.

"Nothing is going to happen tonight, Janine."- Egon put the pack down by the side of his share of bed. It was a queen size, but none of them had ever suggested to get a bigger one. It was another thing that smelled too much like commitment.

"But it could have."

As much as unaware she could be about many things going on, she too had realized the huge risk they had taken. He stayed silent, taking his clothes and glasses off once again before laying down.

"You need to get a few pounds back on."- she patted his abdomen, that let too clearly show the fit muscles underneath the skin. The muscles weren't a bad sight at all, but at the same time his ribs and hip bones were sticking out more than they should have. And those boxers were definitely too loose around his waist. She felt guilt come crushing down on her. Only then she was starting to understand some of the consequences of their repeated mistakes.

A lot of very human feelings had come back to her that night.

"I'll work on that as soon as this is over and done with."- he rubbed his eyes, let his arms rest over his head. The dim light of the lamp disturbed him, but he was feeling too lazy to stretch out an arm and pull its chord.

"I don't wanna sleep."- she laid down too and curled up against him, adjusting then the covers over them both. He was hot as a heater and so she entwined her legs with his, causing him to lightly flinch at the contact with her colder body.- "If I sleep, it'll gonna steal more of me. I don't want to change back to the person she'd turned me into."

"It probably only happens when your brain enters REM phase. I'll keep watch and wake you up regularly to keep you in NREM sleep."- he offered, playing with her mussed up hair.

It was so weird to see her blonde. He really wanted her red hair back.

"Let's do something and keep each other awake instead."- Janine wouldn't have easily surrendered to sleep.

"Any ideas?"- he yawned. Light was definitely hurting his system, signaling that he was over simple tiredness.

"Well... you should be proposing ideas. It's been so long since the last time I've had you half naked in my bed that I could just look at you for hours."- she chuckled, feeling him squirm uncomfortably.- "I said 'look', not 'fu-'"

"Yes thanks, both options make me very uncomfortable."- he sternly cut her off before she could deliver any more damage. Not a simple pink, but a fiery red was already tainting his face because of her blunt claim.

She laughed, sliding to kiss his heated cheek and hug him.- "Love ya."

He groaned, but couldn't help holding her.

* * *

It was going to be another rainy day. Winston had slept much better than he thought he would have. He stirred and started his morning routine in silence not to disturb his sleeping friends.

The hot stream of the shower kick started his mind and he found himself thinking about those past weird 24 hours. They had gone from no hope, just waiting the moment they'd have to face their friend as an enemy, to getting to know that there was indeed hope left. And that even though her situation was still desperate, she had managed to regain scraps her old self thanks to Egon successfully pissing her off. And maybe also thanks to him making up for it later.

He and Peter had been discussing about it and, judging from the uncomfortable expression that had appeared on the physicist's face upon Peter noticing the love bite on his neck, they had both come to the same conclusion.

"That was the most fucked up shit I'd known him do this year."- he said to his own reflection in the mirror, frowning.

His reflection smiled, the damp air of the room filling with his amused chuckling.

Fresh clothes on, he descended to the second floor. Ray wouldn't have waken up for a while. He hadn't gone to bed yet when he and Peter had got back home and, upon receiving Egon's message, he had insisted on preparing the lab. It had taken them at least one hour, postponing bed time to somewhere around 5 a.m.

Only a bunch of minutes to nine, Winston was just stepping off the spiraled staircase.

"Janine, good morning."- he was taken aback by the sight of the woman sitting at the dining table, a jug of coffee in front of her. Her eyes looked tired, but her face was as fresh as a rose.

Perfection was sure useful.

"G'morning."- she moaned. Her voice supplied for the lack of tiredness signs on her face.

"Egon?"

"Fainted."- she emptied her mug and filled it again. To the man's inquisitive look, she gave him more details- "On the couch. The big lump under the pile of blankets and pillows."

The man took some silent steps towards the couch, saw the lump. A tangle of blond hair was sticking out from one end. Brown shoes stuck out from the other end.- "Looks pretty dead. Have you guys been sleeping at all?"

"Nope. Ended up watching b-movies all night. Then we got fed up and we've come here maybe a couple hours ago."- Janine picked up a sesame bagel from the box on the table. Smelled it and put it back.- "Imma feel sick if I don't get sleep in the next thirty minutes or less."

"I'll drink a coffee real fast and go fetch the others."- Winston found his mug in the dishwasher and sat by her, pouring himself some coffee- "More free food. I might miss this."

"I see no one here is going to miss me."- she commented, accepting the fact that the guys had all been pretty immune to her new looks. Apart from Peter, but now that she had regained some lucidity she heavily suspected he had flirted with her just for fun, else he'd have also taken her out on a date and tried to seduce her. She thanked him mentally for not doing that.

"We've been missing you a long time already, sis."- he replied, looking straight in her eyes- "There have been times when something inside you'd change, and we'd see a glimpse of the real 'you', but couldn't know if it was fake or real. I'm glad to know it was real."

She lowered her eyes. She was never able to feel that big of a personality change within her, but Egon too had said something along those lines. Was she ever gonna go back to her old self? She'd become so used to her new one that she couldn't remember how she used to be.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to make you feel bad."- Winston patted her shoulder, hoping he hadn't made her feel uncomfortable.

Her face opened up in a smile- "You didn't say anything wrong. I'm just... Egon said it's very likely that I'll change back once the class seven is out, but 'very likely' doesn't mean 'surely'. So I'm really nervous about what's gonna happen today."

Winston finished his coffee and stood up. Time to go get the guys.- "Egon's 'very likely' usually becomes a 'surely' pretty fast, he just likes to be careful with words. I wouldn't worry about it too much. You wake him, I wake the other two and we catch up in the lab?"

She relaxed infinitesimally and nodded- "Sounds like a plan."

* * *

A couple of showers, three more mugs of coffee poured and half an hour later, everyone had managed to find their way to the lab. And Janine found herself laying on the makeshift bed that was already occupying the center of the lab.

"I won't ask questions..."- she was too tired to argue. She had been asked to take off her clothes and replace them with some spare ones she had left at the firehouse ages earlier. Namely a skirt and a tank top that were now a tad too short for her. The EEG cap on her head made it all more uncomfortable, but she was beyond giving a damn about it.- "Night guys. Don't let it eat me, please."

Dark almost immediately welcomed her the moment she closed her eyes, and her muscles relaxed as she drifted off in the sleep she had been longing for.

"That was fast. Theta waves are already kicking in."- Ray commented from his seat beside the EEG machine. They had decided to start with something simple, a relatively easy to set combination of electroencephalogram and PKE recording. The man added the EEG machine to the mental list of stuff they had to upgrade. They had gotten it for free and broken when they had been kicked out of university for good. Repaired it and used a tad too much, especially in their early days in the business.

"Let's wait a few minutes for the slow waves to appear."- Egon mercilessly rubbed his eyes, leaving them a bit reddened. Two hours of sleep had eased his system some, but not enough.

"You could take the alpha wave generator out of the closet, dust it off a little and enjoy a ride."- Peter still remembered their incident with that thing, but maybe it had only happened because they had risked using it all at the same time. Who knew.

"I might just have another cup of coffee."- the other man replied, attacking his second bagel and deciding which he'd pick as his third one. He was having trouble deciding between one with chocolate drops and another one that seemed to have a raspberry jam filling.

Another round of coffee was served, they all drank it in silence.

They had a fairly good idea about how to analyze the situation, but still no clues about how to solve it. Tension was starting to build up.

Egon remembered something and patted his front pocket. Empty. - "Do we have any sharpies left? Possibly black?"

"I've been waiting for this."- Peter searched the pockets of his jumpsuit. He had put it on directly, knowing there would have been some ghostbusting to do later. He found a sharpie in one his front pockets.- "I take dibs on the face."

"This time we're going to mark her back only, I'm afraid."- Egon accepted the black marker, swept some crumbs off his face with his free hand and approached the bed. - "Let's roll her."

They all gathered around the bed to move her on her side, careful not to detach the electrodes.

"She didn't have a minute of deep sleep last night, but it's got worse."- the physicist commented after lifting the back of her top. He uncapped the marker and drew two circles around the two hard spots that had been causing her skin to swell and redden. The skin wasn't flat anymore, it wasn't hard to miss the stubs lightly protruding. Incredibly she hadn't said anything about it, evidently she hadn't become aware of it yet. He measured them with a ruler, pulled her top down, signaled to roll her back.

"Is our theory wrong? Or is this thing evolving every time it is allowed to react?"- Ray scratched his head, checking the paper that kept being printed by the EEG machine. REM phase wasn't far.

"Let's not jump to conclusions yet." - Egon wrote the measurements he had just taken on a notebook then sat down next to Ray to have a good view of the electroencephalogram- "One thing at a time."

"Let's write down everything we know. It'll help us piece stuff together while we wait."  
Winston's idea was simple and made a good way to start working on the problem.

They kept their voices down as they wrote the list on a wide piece of paper.

First off they copied the salient parts of the Makeoveris Lotsabucks' page from the Tobin's Spirit Guide, then listed the changes in Janine's body and mind, as well as all the 'personality glitch' times they could recall.

At that point Egon stopped them. He had just remembered something vital.

"We should keep her away from the water. By 'water' I mean any amount of water wide enough to form a reflective surface. It could be the catalyst the entity needs to actively modify her."

"You did tell us something about her bath being filled with water last night."- Peter hadn't given it much thought when he was first told- "You remember, guys? The Makeoveris had to drag her near water to complete her transformation. The damn parasite."

"That's an interesting thought. In our case, I think the most correct term would be an 'obligate parasite'."- Egon wondered if they had any valid biology book in their library downstairs.- "I think that the entity is compelling Janine to be in water: she told me she had been feeling the need to bathe more often to ease the pain in her back." - stuff was getting really creepy, even considering their standards. The man cleaned his glasses, one more question coming to his mind- "We do know that without a human host it can't successfully spawn another entity similar to itself. What we don't know is how long the incubation period lasts. "

"We'll need to find a more specific book. Tobin's info about the Makeoveris isn't really detailed."- Ray picked up a red pen and added a note about that, right next to the only other note written in red, reminding them they also had to solve the mystery of the feather.

The task had kept them busy enough not to notice twenty minutes pass by. Time resumed flowing at normal speed when the meter started to beep, making them set aside the sheet and gather around the computer.

What Winston had recorded the previous afternoon repeated with little change. All through the REM phase Janine's original biorhythms emerged and the class seven's power got stronger.

Her sleep got more and more restless as the PKE activity increased. At the peak of the activity, her breathing turned to a slow gasping, tears escaping her eyes.

"I'm waking her."- Peter didn't hesitate and took hold of her shoulders with all the intentions to shake her. He never did. As abruptly as the crisis had come, it stopped.

The man eased his grip on her not to interfere with her curling up on one side, breathing hard as she recovered from whatever had happened.

"REM's over."- Ray announced, a bit shaken by that sudden event. He had the impression that she had just risked drowning. Which was silly since there was no water to drown in- "It was unnaturally short."

"Let's find out what she was dreaming about. Be silent for a bit, guys."- Peter kneeled at the side of the bed, observed by his colleagues. He knew she wouldn't be hard to awake right after REM, and the memory of the dream would still be fresh in her mind. Cupping her face with one hand, he softly called her name a few times.

"Mh..?"- she didn't open her eyes, hardly reaching consciousness.

"Could you tell me about the dream you just had?"- he kept his voice low, caressing her cheek with his thumb.

"...'t was a nice one."- she slurred, her brain so needy to rest that it made it really difficult to form a coherent thought- "Ocean."

"Why was it nice?"- he asked. 'Nice' was the last adjective he would have used to describe her reaction to the dream.

"Ocean was warm. Then... out of the water... hurt to breathe..."- her words were becoming hard to understand- "...wake up?.."

"No, no wake up yet."- Peter kept stroking her cheek to soothe her- "Keep sleeping, everything's fine."

She hummed a positive sound, sliding back into the sleep her body craved.

The man didn't stop moving his hand until her breathing had become regular again and the muscles of her shoulders had relaxed completely. Slowly standing up, he couldn't hide a veil of worry from showing on his face. Looking at his friends he noticed how their facial expressions were more or less the same as his. He nodded towards the door. They still had a good forty minutes to go before the next dream would occur, they could spare some time just out of the door to discuss about what had just happened.

"A nice dream, she said..."- Peter tormented his hair with his hand- "Lucky her it wasn't a bad one..."

"Yesterday she did toss and turn for a while, but nothing like this."- Winston mentally recalled any detail he could about the previous day. Nope. Nothing had happened, he was sure.- "She woke up by herself and just drifted off again."

"It might have been a mistake not to let her sleep."- Egon suggested- "It can be the entity is being more aggressive because it needs to catch up on the ...uhm... 'meal' it was forced to skip last night. If my guess about the role water is playing in this case, she should be safe as long as we keep her away from it."

"So we let her sleep and observe her REM again?"- Ray felt his temples faintly hurt. Stuff was getting even more complicated.- "If you're right saying that the demon needs a catalyst to use the energy it steals from her, then there should be no changes in her readings at all."

"Coming to think of it, I found water in her bath again this morning: while I was out with you guys she must have ignited the transformation process, explaining why her condition has worsened overnight. We'll let her sleep and gather more data, so we'll be able to confirm this theory and to make an estimation of how much of her the entity is using up each time."- the physicist was finding himself silently fighting to keep the most primitive areas of his brain quiet as they screamed not to risk it. He absolutely did not want to do that, but it could be useful to understand the entity's behavior- "This time we'll wake her up and question her as soon as the PKE activity reaches its peak, that will avoid her some of the physical distress."

"I don't like this one bit, but it's necessary."- the occultist gave up to that awful idea- "We won't let her sleep anymore after that so tonight she can sleep normally."

It wasn't the best of plans, but it was all they could come up at the moment.

* * *

It was a rather hard task to free her hair from the accursed EEG cap. After a couple of attempts and with some help, Janine managed to carefully disentangle each strand of hair that had twisted around the electrodes' wires. She felt much better after sleep, but her whole body ached, as if she had tossed and turned a lot.- "So, how am I doing?"

She looked at them exchanging looks before replying to her question. She got the distinct feeling that stuff had taken a turn for the worse.

"We'll need to repeat the test tonight."- Ray decided to do the talking- "It's better if you don't skip sleep anymore." - to her questioning look he made a quick amend- "There were no relevant changes in your readings, but you slept rather... restlessly. Probably your guest didn't like one bit you skipping sleep."

"So you still haven't figured out what's going on."- she huffed, then remembered something and touched her face- "What color are my eyes?"

"They still look pretty green to me."- Peter was still sitting by her side. Her second share of REM sleep hadn't been as bad as the first one, but he felt really upset by the situation. They had let her down badly. He had even fun provoking her in the past weeks. Something tickled his hand. One of her hairs had gotten stuck in the elastic hem of his jumpsuit. He pulled it out. Looked at her, then looked back at the hair.-"What the..."- he muttered in surprise. The white neon lights of the lab made that single hair shine brightly, intensifying its color.

Janine's heart kinda stopped and she snatched the hair from his hand. It was red and straight.

"It's red!"- she yelled, staring at the hair she was keeping securely pinched between her index and thumb- "It's fucking red!"

Everyone gathered around them.

Ray pointed a torch at it to make it shine even more- "I'm not a hair expert, but this is not blond for sure. It also looks straight, not wavy."

"These are all red too."- Winston stated as he checked the hairs that had remained stuck or were broken by the EEG cap's wires and electrodes.

Egon stood aside, observing the scene and the general excitement. Now, that was something that intrigued him greatly. He opened one drawer and found a pair tweezers. Plucked out one hair directly off the top of Janine's head.

"Ouch!"- she yelped, pressing her free hand over the spot where she had felt the little, sharp pain of the hair being pulled out.- "What's wrong with you?!"

"It reverted to red the moment it was separated from the scalp."- he hadn't even heard her exclamation, all of his attention was focused on the results of the simple test he had just run.

"Really?" - Ray came to his taller friend's side- "I wanna try too!"

"The hell you'll try!"- the woman covered her whole head with the pillow.- "You have plenty of hair to play with in that damn cap!"

"Yes, she's right. We don't need any more hair."- Egon commented, missing the point of her protest- "We need to check if this peculiar phenomenon occurs with other kinds of biological tissue. For example nails, skin cells and blood."

"No, ok, on second thought you can have all the hair you want."- Janine wished she had bit her tongue instead of giving the guy weird ideas. Some snickering made her turn to glare at the duo sitting on the two sides of the bed.

Peter and Winston tried to put on serious faces, still amused by her reaction.

"If that's okay with you, Janine, we should go at your place and pick up your hair brush, pins or anything that could have hair stuck on it."- Ray's words spared the two men from further glaring. - "We need to know if this is a recent change or if the entity has been preventing you from noticing it all along."

"I'm not really comfortable with letting her out of the lab at this point."- Egon stated from his seat in front of the microscope. He had plucked out one of his own hairs and was now busy confronting its cellular structure with Janine's one.- "Can someone else go?"

Janine was not really comfortable knowing the poor state they had left the bedroom and bathroom in. And was even less comfortable with the idea of the guys rummaging through the mess.

"It's ok, I'll go with them."- she replied a tad too fast, getting off the bed- "They can shoot me on sight if I start growing fangs."

"Let's get going, then." - Peter fought the urge to tell her they already had figured out what them two lovebirds had been doing and stood up, taking her side. She rewarded him with a relieved smile. He had promised himself he would have tried to make up for his foolish behavior towards her. And hopefully to regain some peace of mind.

Everyone seemed pretty okay with her accompanying them, so the physicist didn't protest.

"Ray and I will stay here and analyze the data we've collected this morning then."

Ray slumped his shoulders and realized he would not have gotten out of the firehouse that day.


	5. Chapter 4

"Damn we should've taken some water supplies along. This is a damn jungle."

Janine sighed to Peter's comment upon noticing the forest of flowers in her living room.

"Don't stray or the mutants living in the jungle could kill you"- she said, walking to the bedroom's door. - "I haven't fed 'em this morning."

The trio moved to the bedroom. She would have preferred to go alone, but they had promised they would have kept a close eye on her.

The bed was covered with a blanket, she had put the sheets in the washer before going out that morning; her discarded clothes laid on the floor.

"Sorry guys, wasn't feeling like tidying up this morning."- she apologized. It was kinda useless, since they weren't likely to give a damn about disorder. But she liked to have her home decent at all times, and that was not one of those times.

"I wish my bedroom was this tidy."- Peter distractedly said, eyeing the red roses.

"It'd be if you'd pick up your own trash"- Winston reminded him. Peter's corner of the bunk room often looked like a war zone, especially in summer when he'd get out every available night to go party and would come home trashed.

"I'll keep that in mind, Mom." - the psychologist huffed. Better to stir the conversation back to the main topic.- "So, where's all the dead hair at?"

"Bathroom. I usually wash my brush, but maybe I can find something stuck to my hair accessories."

"You can go alone, but keep the door open so we can see you."- Winston leaned against the wall, next to the window.

She opened the bathroom and started to search- "Guys, why Egon's so psyched about not leaving me alone in my own place? Not that I mind having you two around, but I'm a bit puzzled by the fact that he didn't have trouble leaving me alone up to twelve hours ago. What's changed?"

The men exchanged looks, deciding who would talk first. Peter nodded.

"He is just really worried about you. We all are."- Winston observed her as she sat on the floor to search one cabinet without stressing her knee too much- "The problem is that all we have are theories."

"Better to be safe than sorry, yeah."- she said, seeing how all the dead hair she kept finding was red. The last time she had used that sparkly hairpin resting in her hand had been probably a week earlier. She had never noticed. Or maybe she'd always been prevented from noticing- "I'm so pissed off, guys."

"We'll fix it."- Peter was confided about their chances of success. No way they would be fooled twice by the same entity.

The woman remained silent, feeling again the same weight she had felt the night before. Her body finally rested and some of the spell lifted, her mind was starting again to function painfully well. She had noticed many things that morning, observing the guys. She now could actually see the permanent shade of worry and maybe guilt in their eyes.

Gathered her findings in a sealed plastic bag Ray had given her, she slowly stood up, resisted the urge to check the bath and got out of the bathroom. As fast as her stress level had risen, it eased as she locked the door behind her.

She sat on the bed and handed Peter the bag, then she laid down, letting her legs dangle off the side of the bed- "I'm tired."

"Oh, some nail scraps too. The boys will love this."- the man fidgeted with the bag, unsure if to try and see if she wanted to talk some or not.

"It must've been hard. Last night I mean."- Winston involuntarily lifted him from the need of deciding what to do.- "I don't know what Egon told you, but it worked good."

"Too good, Winston."- she replied- "It's like... It's a bit like when you're in a coma. I think. I've never been in a coma, but I'm sure it'd feel exactly this way. You fall asleep one day and wake up days, weeks or even months later. Or you don't wake up at all." - she paused to dry a couple of tears before they could ruin her make up- "I am waking up. I'm still not quite there, but everything is beginning to feel clearer and clearer."

"It's gonna be a hard day." - Peter slipped out of his pack and let it rest on the floor. He sat again beside her and patted her head - "Let's steal some time, looks like you need it."

"Can I go make some coffee? Anyone wants some?"- Winston knew Peter was the best fit to handle her. It couldn't hurt to let them be alone for a while, have a little session together.

"That would be great, thanks."- Janine suspected what the man had in mind and decided not to be a good host and let her guest go use her kitchen. It couldn't hurt to vent a little bit. He could have stayed with them, but she didn't have the strength to argue- "Everything's in the cupboard right above the stove."

Winston walked out of the room and left the door half closed; he would have made some coffee and called home to let his friends know everything was fine.

The room fell silent as he left.

"Is it talk time, doctor?"- Janine chuckled, curling up a little bit to ease the pain she was starting to feel on her back.

"If you want. Or I could just pester you to know all of the juicy details from last night until coffee arrives."

"What makes you think that such details would even exist?"- for a moment she felt like everything was normal. One of their usual exchanges.

"Either you are hosting a vampire in that living room sized jungle, or..."- he commenced, to be cut off by a poke in the ribs- "Ouch."

They laughed it off, then got quiet again. They were starting to feel their old relationship come together again. It was a pleasant sensation.

"Last night it hurt like crazy."- she admitted, sitting up.

He passed an arm around her shoulders, squeezed her a bit.

"I hurt everyone so bad and I'm just starting to realize it."- she leaned on him, mulling over her situation.

"I've spent the last month pontificating about the uselessness of guilty trips and blame games."- Peter avoided confessing he was still caught up in his own trips- "You want your little personal sermon or you're good?"

She couldn't hold back a little chuckling.- "I think I'm fine. I realized my mistake and I'll do whatever I can to make things right."

He patted her shoulder. He knew she wasn't one to get easily lost in guilt, even with her new personality. And he knew equally well that if she had become herself again, then her greater worry would match his own. - "You're more worried about Egon than yourself right now, aren't you?"

Janine wasn't surprised by his question and nodded.

"I've never seen him like that before. I've been this close to breaking him."- she raised her hand and made her thumb and index finger come real close- "I'm worried about him. I'm worried about what could happen if he can't find a way to 'fix' me."

"None of us is considering failure an option."- Peter felt confident about it.- "And once this is all over I'll let you have him for a whole week. For free."

She gave it a good laugh. Stuff was feeling more and more right- "Wow, what a great deal. He won't stay out of the lab for a whole week, Dr. V. And you know it."

He felt good inside hearing her call him 'Dr. V.' again.

"We're all gonna spend so much time in there these days that I'm gonna lock the place as soon as we're done."- the man turned his head to the door, hearing Winston calling.

"Coffee, then more lab."- she stood up, stretching her arms.

"Coffee, snack, then more lab."- he copied her, then picked up his proton pack and the precious little bag of biological tissue samples.

* * *

The computer was buzzing, filling the otherwise silent room with its noise.

Ray and Egon had taken care fairly quickly of the data fitting task, all that was left was to wait for the program to finish its automatic analysis

Ray was having a little snack while his friend slept on the makeshift bed.

Egon had been feeling wobbly all morning and, about half an hour earlier, he had given up and decided to go for a little nap. On his part, Ray had no intentions of waking him up at least until he'd need him for something.

It was about half past noon when Ray heard the garage opening and Ecto's engine being turned off.

He walked out of the lab and down the stairs to meet the others and make sure they wouldn't make too much noise. A faint scent of hamburgers and fries announced their arrival on the second floor.

The occultist's stomach growled loudly and the smell wasn't making him feel sick, letting him implicitly know that his system had successfully eradicated the virus.

"I love you guys."- Ray breathed upon seeing the massive amount of bags his three friends were carrying. It was gonna be an epic meal. He had given up to the idea that he would have eaten only boiled rice and vegetable soup for the rest of his days, so the sight of a load of normal food on the table made his heart skip beats.

"Take it easy."- Peter laughed at his younger friend's reaction and handed him a differently colored paper bag- "We unanimously decided you can have one really special dietetic soy burger."

"It sounds delicious anyways."- Ray accepted the bag and smelled it- "Anything that's not white rice will do."

"Oh, I also have a present for you, Ray."- Janine graciously gifted him with her bag of hair and nail scraps. - "I hope it's good enough."

"Egon will totally love this."- Ray looked through the transparent sides of the bag- "He's spent a good part of the morning analyzing hair."- Analyzing his hair too. Ray's head still hurt from the abuse.

"You guys found out anything useful?"- she sighed, looking at the spiraled staircase. The guy was probably still sitting in front of the microscope, in the same position she had left him.

"He said he needs to analyze your living tissues to be able to draw any conclusions. I'll go get him."- Ray left his healthy burger on the table to go wake his colleague up and leave the sealed bag in the lab.

"Hooray..."- Janine slumped down on the nearest chair. An interesting afternoon was about to commence.

* * *

They soon were all sitting around the dining table, having their deserved lunch and talking about the situation. No real progress had been made, they still needed to study the tissue samples and to acquire a precise book.

The mood was shifting on a positive one, as the men had the impression that as hours passed by Janine kept sounding and acting more like her former self. They still had to determine whether that was a real improvement or just a temporary situation, but they had promised themselves to take things one at a time so their worry level had lowered a little bit.

"You need a haircut, man."- Winston said from behind the last quarter of his burger, seeing the physicist struggle with the damn hairband that had been failing to keep his hair out of the way the whole morning.

"It's on my to-do list."- Egon muttered opening a metallic hairpin with the aid of his teeth and quickly putting it in place to support the elastic band. He had finished his meal already. Appetite had come back and he had to admit to himself that he functioned better with a full stomach.

Janine dug into her purse and handed him a purple headband, a really wide and strong one she used to tame her hair when she'd need to touch up her make up - "Take this. Yours is too narrow, no way it's gonna hold up that mass of hair."

"It's purple."- he couldn't help pouting, reluctantly accepting it. It had been a living hell having to push his hair out of the way while he was using the microscope and he had no intentions of repeating the experience. But purple was really not his color. It'd have made him look like a zombie.

"Uncle Pete is gonna buy you a prettier one if you behave."- Peter had trouble saying his line with a straight face: his friend's fashion sense coming out at such a time and place was hilarious.

A quiet chuckling spread across the table.

If Egon's pouting had made Janine's heart ache in tenderness, seeing everyone for the first time in weeks joke about idiot things and give it a good laugh made her heart crumple up in a little ball and sink. It hurt again so bad. Just like it had hurt the previous evening.

She was about to lose all of this. The little, stupid pleasures of life. The sincere friendship of her guys. Maybe more sincere than the relationship with some of her older friends, who complimented her for the change of looks. Saying stuff like '_hey, I'm sorry I called you ugly back in high school_'.

She had dodged out of pure luck a life of lies. Or maybe she was gonna fall right back into it.

A meter started to beep from the step of the spiraled staircase where it had been abandoned, making all of her muscles go stiff.

Everyone got quiet, eyes pointed at her.

"I..it's ok guys. It seems to happen when I am upset. Still not growing fangs and demonic wings."- she nervously bit her lips, lowering her eye and hoping that damn beeping would stop soon.

Something caught her attention. It was a hand snapping its fingers in front of her. She stopped staring at the table and automatically looked up to find herself gazing into the physicist's eyes.

"Look at me. What's wrong?"- he calmly asked. Her eyes were still green. Good sign.

"I don't know. I just felt sad all of a sudden. I'm still really tired and my head's not working good."

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. She just wanted that anxiety to go away.

He didn't buy it one bit, and his eyes showed it. But he decided not to press her further.

The beeping died out, letting everyone stop holding their breath. Creepy situation was getting creepier.

"Since I'm done eating I'm going back to the lab and finalize the data from this morning. If you want you can nap while I work."- he definitely did not want to let her out of their sight for even a second at that point.

She hesitated.

Ray intervened. They needed to keep that thing inside her in its dormant state -"We've established that this entity is not going to... uhm... 'eat you' if you just sleep, so it's safe."

That piece of information made her feel lighter. Still embarrassed from what had just happened, she nodded and stood up. - "I'm sorry for all of this trouble guys. I'll sleep just a little bit, so the tests won't be postponed for long."

As it was to be expected from them, everyone just smiled and told her that it was okay, not to feel bad about it, that schedule was not a problem.

Relieved, she found the strength to smile too and excused herself to go get some sleep under strict supervision.

* * *

"How's your knee doing?"

"Hurting much less today."- Janine replied, taking off her shoes. She touched her knee from over the thin layer of nylon covering her legs- "No liquid, too."

"That's good."

Egon's attempt at a casual conversation died there. He had been ignoring her for so long that finding appropriate conversation cues was a hard task. He stood there in front of her, really wanting to know what had just happened, but at the same time afraid to upset her further.

"I'm not gonna unleash hell if you ask me what's wrong."

During lunch Peter had said something about him and Janine having a meaningful chat, but no one had reported about anomalies in her PKE readings. Which lead Egon to the conclusion that he definitely had some kind of influence on her and had to be extra careful with words.

He cleared his throat and sat on a stool nearby.

"I seem to be the one able to elicit the strongest emotional reactions from you, so I'm not sure if I should be the one to ask."

She took the couple of steps separating them and gave a fix to the headband on his head.

"That's cause I love you, dummy."

Receiving love declarations when the others could burst in the room any minute made the man uncomfortable. He shrugged the sensation off and let her adjust his hair.

"What's wrong, then?"

"I don't wanna disappear."- she slid her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them a bit.

It was the first time she used those words to describe her feelings, but it didn't feel like the first time to him. When had he heard her say those exact words?

Out of a sudden, his temples gave him hell. A really suspicious headache.

_Did I __really__ see her fly away?_

"We're doing our best to prevent that."- he took her hands and stood up- "Remember that this entity feeds off negative emotions. It's very possible that it's amplifying the natural discomfort the situation is causing you."

She didn't waste her chance and held him tight. The dramatical sigh she heaved before speaking again was a clear trace of her fading artificial personality as the perfect flirt- "Then what am I supposed to do? Sit and wait?"

He had spent the whole month telling himself he absolutely loathed that new version of Janine to find out that, anger gone, he wasn't as immune as he thought he'd be to her new looks. And having her all over him in plain daylight – knowing the guys would be in the lab any minute- made him feel the compulsive need of loosening the collar of his shirt. It felt tight all of a sudden.

"Right now it would be best to lay in bed and sleep a while."- Egon acted nonchalantly and stirred her towards the bed- "So you'll actually have the energy needed to sit and wait while we analyze you. Or you could lay on the table instead. I could work on your hair while you sleep. To optimize time."

"Can't we just move the microscope closer to the bed?"- she liked the idea to optimize time, but wasn't sure about her own abilities to rest well on a damn wooden table.

He approved her suggestion and immediately started arranging a smooth surface at the same height as the bed's foldable structure.

She gave him a hand, wondering how that was really not the way she had imagined the moment he'd have finally decided to lay her on the lab's table.

* * *

Winston entered the lab to find Janine sound asleep and Egon busy with his analysis: he had placed the microscope on a box right next to the bed. To make such arrangement work he had to be sitting on the floor, but he wasn't one to complain about such details.

Winston sat on the floor next to him, offering him one of the two cups he was carrying.

"Thank you."- the physicist turned off the microscope's light and accepted the cup of caffellatte.

"Any progress?"

"I'd like to wait until I've examined her nails too before considering my theory as valid."- Egon whispered not to disrupt the woman's sleep. - "But as for now, the cellular modification seems to disappear as soon as the tissue is detached from her body. And, judging by the samples in our possession, this is a phenomenon that's been present since day one."

Winston felt unsettled by that information. He took a couple of sips of his black coffee, thinking.

"You don't mean she can only die to revert the cellular modification, do you?"

"That would be one of the two options. The other one would be that the very moment this entity is removed from her body, she'll automatically revert. But as I said, I'm not sure yet. The key to understanding this process is closely bond to our knowledge of the Makeoveris, which is very limited at the moment. Ray has identified one particular book that could help us and it's quite rare to find." - the physicist drank some more then had to stop. His stomach was still full from the meal he had and it didn't like being loaded with more stuff, signaling it with a sense of strong nausea.

"Ray has gone to the library with Peter. He said if we're lucky there should be one copy in archive. Are you feeling alright? Your face just turned green."

"I might need to throw up soon."- Egon set aside the mug and pressed a hand on his throat.

The unpleasant feeling wasn't going to go away anytime soon. He should have eaten his lunch more slowly, given time to his stomach to expand again after weeks of little to no solid food.

Winston finished his coffee in one long sip and stood up, placing the mug on the working table. He helped his friend to stand on his feet.- "You can make it to the bathroom or you need a bucket?"

"I think I can make it. Could you stay here and watch over her?"

Winston nodded- "There's some anti-emetic in the medicine cabinet, you try and take some, ok?"

He watched as the other man dragged himself to the door. - "And call me if you need anything."

Egon moaned something like a 'thanks', then got out of the room.

* * *

"How do you mean unavailable?!"- Ray almost jumped over the desk to grab the librarian by the neck and make him confess what had happened the book. Peter's hand grabbed his shoulder and he remembered he was not supposed to yell into a public library.

Sure, the librarian guy had searched for the wrong book three times already and seemed to have a problem accepting the fact that his job was to help people find stuff, but they couldn't break havoc in there and risk getting banned. Being precluded from that place would have been a hard blow to their finances because of all the books they would need both for leisure and for work.

Just their luck that the girl that usually served them had to be on vacation.

"Listen..."- Peter put himself between the steaming occultist and the desk. He eyed the id card around the young man's neck- "... John. My friend's here is a little nervous today, you gotta forgive him. But we really need that book. Could you please check again, John?"

John decided that the sooner he obeyed, the earlier those two would have left him alone. So he fed the correct data into the computer again. Got the same response as before.- "I confirm, the book is unavailable. A person borrowed it last week."

Peter felt that they were getting nowhere.- "Who borrowed it?"

"Sir, that's reserved information. I can't..."

There couldn't be many people knowing about that book. Mostly because it was written in a language so dead that only a few could actually read it. And Ray knew pretty much all of those persons. That gave him an idea:

"But you could describe that person to us."

John looked at the long line forming behind the two weird men in jumpsuits.

He couldn't remember what the guy looked like, but he had easy access to his photo through the library database. - "If I show you his photo, will you get out of here?"

A huge grin appeared on Peter's face- "Print it out for us and we'll be out of here before you even know it."

The librarian sighed and activated the printer.

* * *

"This is amazing. Seems to me the nails' cells are behaving just like the hair ones."- Winston said from behind the microscope. He had been alternating the nail scraps and the tip of Janine's long nails. She also had given him permission to cut one and he had witnessed the cell structure change as soon as the cut piece was detached from the rest of the nail. Incredible.

Egon had been finding hard to focus on such a tiresome task, so he had been finalizing the PKE data. His stomach felt ok again after throwing up. - "I also have some interesting results."

"So? How am I doing?"- Janine straightened her back, eager to know. She had only managed to sleep for a little while, then had been perched on that stool for a good hour. She couldn't wait anymore. She hoped to hear good news.

"As I said, we can't be sure yet, but the PKE analysis reveals that you haven't gotten worse."- Egon showed them the printed graphs of her readings - "I'd like to wait for Ray's opinion before commenting further these results."

"Even if partial, these sound like some wonderful news anyways."- Winston was quite satisfacted already. They had been making huge progresses in the last 24 hours.

"But what's changed then? Why I am not getting worse?"- Janine couldn't relax just yet- "It can't be that this damn thing just stopped eating me because you pissed me off last night, Egon."

"We know why, but I can't tell you just yet."- the physicist decided to be honest with her- "It's legitimate to believe that what you know, the entity knows. This particular piece of information could put you all of us in great danger."

"I should have guessed that."- she played nervously with a lock of her hair.

The door opened, interrupting the conversation.

"This is bad. Very bad."- Ray hadn't enjoyed his first trip out of the firehouse after a whole week of forced reclusion. He sat on the couch, steaming.

"What's bad?"- Winston scratched his forehead. He could almost feel new wrinkles forming on his skin from the stress.

"Guess who has our little precious book?"- Peter came in second. He didn't look pleased either.

Off course no one could answer, so he handed the pic to the blond man giving him a baffled look.

"Do we really need that book?"- Egon's brows furrowed. It wasn't like him to hate someone so fiercely, but that person would have been on top of his killing list, if only homicide would be legal.

"We've called all of the libraries, book stores and collectors we could think of. One guy had it but had sent it out to California to be displayed at some temporary exhibit. And yes, it would be best for us to have it. We could do fine without it, but the risk level would rise."- Ray admitted.

"Then what's the problem. We call'em and ask to see the book. Then we copy the part we need and done."- Winston surely wouldn't have put up resistances if someone asked him.

Egon showed him the pic, which made Winston frown.

"Where have I met this guy before..."- he muttered. He couldn't pinpoint the occasion, but he certainly knew him.

Janine stretched her neck and looked at the pic- "Oh it's Marcus. What about him?"

"You know him?"- Peter couldn't help but thinking that it really was a small world.

"Red roses in my living room. He got 'em for me."- she innocently replied, the pride for her many conquers made her smirk - "Met him at a party, he was with some ex-colleagues of yours from the University that introduces us. We went out for dinner, it was nice."

Peter noticed a twitch under the physicist's eye, probably signaling a fit of silent jealousy. He couldn't blame him: it had to be a wonderful night if the guy was sending her red roses just for a dinner, but he was distracted before he could open his mouth.

"Ah! Now I remember!"- Winston looked closer at the picture- "He's the dude who set you up and almost had you thrown out of college, isn't he?"

"Yup. He almost got me good. I was in my senior year and I kind of made out with his drunk girlfriend at a frat party."- Peter shrugged- "He messed with my school records and I got blamed for it. I got out of it only because I could prove I was out of town with Egon."

"Bastard."- Winston's comment wasn't very articulated. He could have used much dirtier words to describe that person- "Then what?"

"The matter was discarded. His family had been donating huge amounts of money, so the administration couldn't just expel him."- Egon continued from where the psychologist had left- "Although Peter had other plans in mind to take care of Marcus, I persuaded him to let it go and avoid giving the Dean a good motive to kick him out."

"I feel like there's more coming."- Janine said, starting to wonder if the guy had other reasons other than her incredibly good looks to court her.

"They ignored him. But he never 'forgave' them for making him look like a fool in front of the Dean. Long story short, he's been trying to sabotage them many times."- Ray was sure it would have taken a long while to list all of the exchanged courtesies between that man and his friends.- "He probably hates me too."

"He does hate you. You chose me over him when you picked labs, remember?"- Egon reminded him.

"Isn't he the one who tried to make you look like a fool at that parapsychology symposium a couple of years ago?"- Winston had remembered where he had seen that face.

Ray nodded- "Yeah. Sometimes he just likes to show up and mess with us."

"Well then now I have a valid explanation for the jungle in my living room. Yay."- Janine found herself wondering about the real appeal of her new looks. Not only it hadn't been of use into her quest to the physicist's heart, but also she'd been courted by that guy just to piss her bosses off. Her whole body position changed to a less proud one. She tried to control the anxiety. The thing was probably messing with her mind again.

"At least he never got to know this buddy here messed with his girlfriend too."- Peter patted his blond friend's back- "Else the two of us would be six feet under, rotting together."

"That's a very.. uhm.. romantic imagery, Peter." - Egon scratched his chin. It was a dark thought, but at the same time somewhat amusing.

"Ew guys. Too much information."- the secretary wasn't expecting to know her man could have such a scabrous past. If she ever were to discover that he had decided to become a prude right before meeting her she was sure she'd have a nervous breakdown.

"So, we know that everyone here got to experiment in college."- Winston didn't hold back a laughter. Although the contracted look that had appeared on the woman's face a few minutes earlier made him decide to stir the conversation back to important matters- "Any ideas about how to get what we want from this nice guy?"

Janine didn't give it much thought - "I'll give him a call and get the book in no time. And give him a fucking piece of my mind."

"I'd love to see that. But... we'd have a little problem." - Peter cocked one eyebrow, implicitly reminding her why that wouldn't be a good plan.

"We could just go and ask nicely. He'll give it to us if we tell him it's to save her."- Ray proposed. Still not a winning plan, but had its sense.- "He doesn't know we know."

"Oh yeah, save me so he can keep using me to get back at you. Wonderful. Do I have to come along or can I stay here?"- She wanted to be alone. A good bath would have been the top to ease her mind and her back. It had resumed aching again because of her sitting uncomfortably on the stool.

"We should be the ones going."- Egon told Peter, taking off the infamous purple headband- "We wouldn't go ask him in person if it wouldn't be important. It might rub his ego the right way."

"Yup. Sounds good."- Peter stretched his arms, lifting them over his head- "Let's make it quick and painless."

* * *

Doctor Marcus Delacroix was enjoying a cigarette in his wide, luxuriously furnished living room.

Working in the medical research field was granting him a fancy lifestyle. Powerful enough not to have openly declared enemies, but just friends and a wide set of lapdogs, he enjoyed his well deserved solitude.

He lazily leafed through the poor quality copy of an ancient text from India. He had thought it would have made a good read to revamp his translating skills; he had been attracted mainly by the fact that it was a particularly difficult text and the only copy available in the State. Rare things called out to him to collect them.

Just he had been neglecting linguistic studies for a quinquennial too long and couldn't understand a word. Even the pictures had been badly copied. He decided to take the book back to the library on his way to work the following day and closed it.

He still hadn't had any news from the woman he was courting at the moment. She was a keeper. Rarest jewel of them all. Inhumanely beautiful, classy and the secretary of the only three little stones in his shoes. Well, actually four. He didn't have anything personal against poor Mr. Zeddemore, he had barely met him once. But he was part of the team.

He took mental note that he had to call her that night.

The man stood up and checked his reflection in the fine Belle Epoque mirror adorning the wall behind his mahogany mini bar. He smiled at his reflection, satisfied of the sophisticated man he was seeing, and picked up a glass. A second away from deciding if to reward himself with a little whiskey on the rocks or with a little shot of rum, he was disturbed by the doorbell ringing.

He put down the empty glass and walked to the main door. Who could it be disturbing him without calling him beforehand? How rude. People knew he was a busy man, they couldn't just go and ring his friggin' doorbell.

He didn't even look through the peephole, he just bluntly opened the door, ready to yell at whoever was disturbing his day off. And was left flabbergasted upon seeing those two men on his steps.

"What the hell?"- he blurted out.

"Hello there, we're happy to see you too, buddy." - Peter waved his hand to him- "Hope you don't mind us parking there."- he pointed at Ecto, poorly parked on the sidewalk right in front of the terraced house. The people from the confining units were already at the windows, trying to figure out what was the matter.

"Make it quick Venkman."- Marcus hissed, waving and smiling to the old lady next door to hopefully make her get away from that window.

"Oh it depends on you. See you have a book that's vital to us. You recently got it from the library. A very rare one about fancy ancient Indian tales."- the psychologist put his hands in his pockets- "We just need to give a look at one page. Well maybe two or three. Can we? Promise we won't touch anything and even make sure some of these valuable collectibles of yours ain't haunted."

The shorter man laughed. Glorified Doctors Venkman and Spengler at his door begging for his help. Too good to be true- "Wouldn't it be hilarious if I said no?"

"You know we wouldn't ask for your help unless it was serious."- Egon used his best plain voice. The man was getting on his nerve more than he'd usually would.

Peter added quickly some more info- "It's about our secretary. She's been having troubles with some nasty, nasty demon. You don't want to be responsible for the ruin of an innocent, do you?"

Then that was why she hadn't called him back all of the previous day. He smirked.

"Oh I would never allow my extreme_ liking_ for you two damage a lady. You can come in."- he pointed at the blond man- "You get lost. Perhaps you could do something useful and go find another spot to place your... car." - he added, glaring at Venkman.

Peter smiled, hinted a bow and calmly walked to the car.

* * *

"I'm done. Thank you."- Egon closed the book after having meticulously copied the chapter Ray had told him they needed; the process hadn't taken him more than twenty minutes, and the quick haircut Peter had literally forced him to take before getting to Delacroix's place had speeded up things dramatically.  
Luckily they only needed a small part. It was a truly interesting book. He would have borrowed it for sure in the future to translate it fully.

Marcus had been observing him from the sofa, savoring the whiskey on the rocks he was about to drink before the intrusion.- "That was fast. You must have a lot of free time to practice your copying skills."

"I usually prefer to spend my free time studying, rather than doing nothing."- the man replied, tucking his small note book in the front pocket of his jumpsuit.

"Touchè."- Dr. Delacroix raised his glass towards him in a silent toast and finished the little alcohol left - "But you have to concede that idleness is a good counterweight to a very active social life."

Having lived under the same roof as Peter for most part of his adult life, Egon would have used other words. 'Sloth' probably was the most appropriate. He didn't engage in a discussion about lexicon with him. He opted for a very brief answer to the provocation- "To each their own, Doctor."

The chemist had mixed feelings towards that guy. Academically, he had to admit he had talent. Could have been greater than him if only he hadn't been caught up with that Venkman.

But deep down, Marcus was still convinced that Egon had lied years before, when he had guaranteed for his friend. Which clearly put him in his black list.- "It's been a pleasure. To find the exit, follow the light at the end of the tunnel."

Egon didn't rise the bait and bid goodbye, walking out of the room and into the corridor. His hand was on the handle when the other man came out of the living room and talked again.

"Oh by the way. How rude of me. I haven't asked how Miss Melnitz is doing."

Egon found that was becoming increasingly hard to maintain absolute control over his own facial muscles to form a neutral expression. - "She'll get better."

Upon entering that house, he had invented a plausible story about a mysterious entity haunting her apartment, making her very upset and fearful for her own safety.

"She didn't look very upset to me last time. Didn't take long to make her forget her troubles, if you catch my drift."

As much as Marcus' sentence could be broadly interpreted, the particular look in his eyes leaved no doubts. It was a clear '_I had sex with your secretary just to see the look on your face when I'd tell ya. And by the way, she liked it very much_'.

He had picked the wrong person to play his little games on.

The physicist didn't show any sign of emotion- "You really are a poor excuse of a man, Delacroix."

And with that, he was out of the door, internally satisfied to hear the door being slammed shut with force.

Ecto's horn caught his attention and let him walk in the right direction as everything imploded inside him. He absently opened the door of the car and sat inside. Closed the door. Put on the seat belt. A hellfire was burning inside his head: jealousy, doubts, anger. The latter one especially directed towards himself. And a distinct and very irrational desire to go back inside that living room and beat the living shit out of that douche bag.

The more Peter tried to talk to him, the more he stayed silent, lost in his own thoughts.

"Ouch."- he grunted when the brown haired man pinched his arm really hard.

"Earth calls Egon. You with me?"- Peter put his hand back on the wheel as he drove through New York's late afternoon traffic.

"Yes."- the other man nodded, but didn't elaborate further.

"Good. Stay with me and tell me what's happened in there."

"The bastard claims they had sex. And I can't understand whether it's true or if he just knows I am too much of a gentleman to go question Janine about that."- Egon said from behind gritted teeth.

"Good thing you didn't smash his face."- Peter glanced sideways at the killer look that had appeared on his friend's face.

"What tells you I didn't?"

"He'd be out screaming like a little girl if you'd given him a piece of your mind."- the psychologist simply replied- "I still remember the last time I've seen you react violently and boy, it wasn't pretty. At all."

"And I couldn't afford a good lawyer at the moment."- Egon convinced himself he had done the right thing just walking out of the place and relaxed a little bit.

"Now, calm down and tell me all about it."

* * *

The weather had gotten so better that it finally looked like spring again. As they waited, the three people left in the firehouse decided to take a stroll to a small park nearby.

It was Janine's idea and Ray couldn't help strongly approving it. He wanted to spend some time outside too. He had finished checking the progress that had been made during his trip to the library and was halfway through reading all over again the detailed file about Janine's Fairy Godmother. It couldn't hurt to finish reading it on a bench.

They informed Peter and Egon by radio, packed some water and left.

Janine couldn't have stood being closed in the firehouse any longer, waiting for someone else to decide what to do and her head aching from the endless chains of bad thoughts that had been haunting her again because of what she had been told about her main suitor.

She hadn't been honest with him as well, so would that still make her a victim or put her at the same level as him? Just as he was dating her only to follow his own twisted plans of vendetta, she had been accepting his attentions to test the power of her new looks. Same reason she had dated those other two guys. Just to fool around, provoke them and watch their reactions.

Then why her stomach still felt knot?

Her expectations for her new life were all about her being treated like a queen by men.

She wasn't supposed to be used, but be the one that would use others.

The radio beeped, making the men put down their reading material. Peter's voice let them know that they were close to home and had successfully gotten what they wanted from Delacroix.

"We have to get going."- Ray said, closing the folder and putting it down on his lap. He glanced around to spot their secretary- "Oh boy. She's got that lost look on her face again."

"Meter's silent."- Winston checked the muted meter he had placed right next to himself.

The two men gave a better look at Janine from their bench: she had left them to go sit on a swing and had been sitting there for a while, swinging lightly.

The park was always rather deserted. There were no schools nearby and the bad weather had discouraged most of its few abitual visitors from going.

The baby of the young lady sitting on a bench at the other side of the playground started crying, making Janine raise her head and turn to look at her. The distraction dragged her out of her obsessive thinking. She smiled at the sight of the mother taking the boy in her arms and comforting him. It wasn't nothing out of ordinary, but it warmed her a little inside.

She stretched her good leg, then slid out of the sling and strolled back to where the guys were.

"No news?"- she asked once she was standing in front of them.

"They're on their way. We were about to call you." - Winston replied, standing up as well- "Feel better?"

"I've been thinking too much."- she took her water bottle from the spot beside the bench where she had left it and drank some- "But it feels great to be outside in this weather."

"Yeah. It's wonderful to be outside."- Ray agreed with her. He felt much more relaxed and even more rested. Sometimes it took very little to make the day take a turn for the better.

They took it slow on their way home.

"I'm sorry the trip to the park didn't ease your mind some"- Ray was the first to talk after a couple minutes of silence.

The woman was surprised by his statement, which was the truth- "My Fairy Godmother is trying to make me feel worthless again. But the more she tries, the more I feel violated and angry. So I let her. I want to be as pissed as possible the moment I'll see her ugly face again."

"That's our girl." - Winston passed an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her- "You're gonna give her hell."

She encircled his waist with her arm and giggled. She couldn't wait.

* * *

"I'm sure it's a lie."- Peter said after Egon had described him the scene again. - "She's not the kind of girl that would do that on the first date with some dude she's just met."

He had never been on that kind of date with Janine so he couldn't know for sure, but he had overheard her comment negatively about such behavior many times in the past, while having personal phone calls during office hours. Maybe her new personality had come with an extra slutty side, but he preferred not to speak that thought.

To Egon's silence, the psychologist resumed talking- "And I mean, c'mon. That guy's not stupid. He knows you wouldn't just go to her and say: 'oh by the way, I heard you got laid last week'. If I had been the one to go instead of you, he'd have never dropped that comment cause he knows I would blow his cover up in no time."

Egon took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. He wasn't in the mood for speculation- "So you're hinting that now I'm supposed to go to Janine and ask her?"

"Well... it would probably end with us trying to save Delacroix's ass from being blasted by a very pissed off secretary from Hell. But it would be fun to watch."- Peter smiled at the thought. It would be epic.

"I have no intentions of putting her life in danger just to take some petty revenge on him. And if what he hinted revealed to be true, I would have absolutely no right to react as negatively as I am. There's nothing official between me and her. "

"Spengs, you know stuff is much more complicated than that between the two of you."

'Complicated' was an euphemism.

Egon huffed. He didn't want to talk about that. - "You called the others?"

"I forgot. I'll do it now."

Peter let the others know they were on their way home, hung up the microphone of the radio.

The rumble of the engine and the noises of the City kept them company as the two friends remained silent.

They were the first ones to get home. The others had still to be walking back from the park.

"I'll better go translate this."

"I'm sure Ray would jump sky high if you asked him to translate it together." - Peter suggested. He wanted his colleague to take his mind off it for a bit.- "Let's drink something as we wait for them."

Egon would have declined, but his stomach kept growling. He hadn't eaten anything since when he had thrown up his lunch. A tea couldn't have dealt damage- "Sounds good."

"We should really clean this place up."- Peter said five short minutes later, sitting on the couch with his mug of insta-coffee. The coffee table was still cluttered with his books from college.

It took Egon a couple of minutes more to brew his tea. He added a generous amount of sugar, then joined him. He picked up the book on top of the pile - "Loss and grief. I still can't believe I let myself slip into depression so easily."

A thought popped up in the psychologist's mind. Not only Egon but all of them had unusual reactions to the event. Every single one of them had felt a strong sense of helplessness since day one. Even if they had tried to fight it, they all were crushed by it and hadn't been able to help each other, or even themselves- "Do you think it's possible we've been manipulated too?"

"I'd rather say we might have been negatively influenced."- the physicist replied- "By trapping the original Makeoveris before its curse could be completed we have critically weakened its power, so I doubt that the entity inside Janine would be able to fully manipulate our reactions."

"It'd be such a comforting thought, knowing there's someone else to blame."- Peter's thoughts were directed at his own behavior, but could be applied to each four of them.

"I remember someone giving me long lectures about blame."- Egon poked his friend's arm, smiling from behind his mug.- "He looked a lot like you, If I remember correctly."

"Oh I know him. Quite a handsome guy, if you ask me."

They gave it a laugh, silently agreeing about depression time being officially over.


	6. Chapter 5

The first thing Janine noticed upon entering the rec area of the firehouse were the two guys sitting on the floor with their heads real close to each other, hunched over some thick book and producing noises similar to schoolgirls' giggling.

"If this is not a convenient time, we'll come back later."

The speed at which the two of them turned to look at her, hiding behind their backs whatever they were looking at made it all more suspicious. She crossed her arms and gave 'em a stern look.

They looked at each other and gave up, showing one of several school annuals laying on a pile behind them. They had one for each university year, most of them in triple copy. It was a lot of them.

"The yearbooks!"- Ray dropped on the couch the folder he was carrying and joined his friends on the floor. He was particularly fond of them and could spend hours leafing through them and reading the notes left by his friends. They reminded him of one of the happiest periods of his life.

"Coming to think about it, you've never showed me your yearbooks, guys."- Janine followed the very excited occultist to the pile of books.

Winston sat down last. He had gone through Ray's yearbook frenzy several times. It was always a fun experience, but did they really have time for that? - "Guys, can't we do this after we've finished?"

"Sorry, we were finding a place for my old books and got caught with these." - Peter confessed, opening again the annual he had on his lap.

Remembering that they actually had important stuff to do caused Ray to instantly switch from enthusiastic to sad. He hadn't even had the time to fish one of his own books from the pile.

"Let's take one upstairs and look at it during breaks." - Janine wasn't gonna lose so easily the occasion to take a look at those annuals.

Egon had a better idea. Now that she was there, so close, he had realized he really needed some time alone to cool off. Her face only made him see again in his mind the face of that damn Delacroix, which wasn't good when he badly needed his brain to think straight.

"It won't take me long to write down the translation. I've understood most of it as I copied the text."- he said, propping himself up with his arms to stand up- "You guys can rest some more and have fun with the yearbooks."

"Alright. Don't be long, then."- Peter supported his decision before anyone could protest. It wasn't hard to imagine why he would take so quickly the chance to remove himself from the group.

The quick interaction was perceived as normal by the other two men, but perceived as suspicious by the woman. She shrugged it off, thinking she probably was still being influenced by her cumbersome guest.

* * *

Peter started to think soon enough that there could be other reasons why his friend had left the field so quickly. The pics in those albums were sure embarrassing and he happened to be in a lot of them.

"Look, that's our friend right there."- Ray showed him one particular picture.

A younger Marcus Delacroix was smiling at them from years past.

"That's not my friend, that's her friend!"- Peter replied, feeling the hate coming straight from his guts. The date on the page told him that the pic had probably been taken while he was being grilled by the Dean about that whole messed up records matter.

"I'm not sure I can define the scumbag a friend either."- Janine shifted uncomfortably on the armchair she had been sitting on.

"He could be interested in you for real, who knows?"- As much as Ray could dislike that man, he would still feel bad to condemn him without proof.

She shook her head- "Can I say something very blunt, guys?"

The men looked at each other, looked at her again to let her continue.

"There's only one thing men want from me right now, and he's no exception. And none of them got it, him included."- she paused to brush a lock of hair behind her ear- "At first I thought he was invading me with flowers to see if he could make up for his poor behavior on our first date, but now that I know that you guys have an history with him, it seems pretty clear to me what's going on."

"Wait what?"- Peter blurted out before realizing he should have kept his trap shut. Too late. Oh well, not a problem. He had been dying to know the truth, and, in case Marcus hadn't lied to them, possibly before Egon would.

Luckily, it looked like his own speculations about Janine's behavior were more than correct.

"...'What' what?"- She asked, puzzled.

"Please, no. Not the 'what' game again."- Winston had a quick and unpleasant flashback from their struggle against Watt: one of the worst headaches of his life.

"Let's say the good Doctor told us a different tale."- the psychologist could only stick with his slip and confess at that point.

The woman's face turned pinker. She forced herself to keep calm- "If he thinks he can get away with it, he..."- another thought made her stop mid-sentence- "Shit."

She would have stood up and run upstairs but she didn't have the time to do so. Footsteps approached the staircase and the legs of the object of her worries appeared from the hole in the ceiling.

"This sure was an interesting reading..."- Egon commented as he walked down the spiraled stairs with his notebook and a couple of handwritten sheets in his hand. He couldn't miss the somewhat tense atmosphere between the people looking at him from the rec area- "...Am I interrupting something?"

Janine realized it wasn't a convenient time to argue, so she made up an excuse- "We were discussing about the amount of fashion failures included in these books."

"That's uhm... interesting."- the physicist imagined there must have been some heated discussion between her and Peter about fashion. He did look kind of upset. Time to turn to important matters. - "I really need you to read this, Ray. Could you take the Makeoveris' file and come upstairs?"

"Yeah. Leave us to our fashion debate."- Peter made a shooing gesture with his hand, backing up Janine and her lie. He realized he had been covering lies a lot in the past hour.

Ray simply obeyed, picking up the folder from where he had left it on the couch and joining Egon on the stairs.

* * *

"That was close."- Peter whispered as soon as the two men had disappeared upstairs.

"You think he heard?"- Janine whispered too, leaning forward to take a glimpse of the top section of the staircase.

"It's kinda useless to whisper now."- Winston reminded them - "And even if he overheard something, what'd be the problem? You only said you didn't go to bed with that guy."

"I... I know, you're right."- She stammered, resting her elbows on her thighs and propping her face up with one hand. The emotional rollercoaster was leaving her drained- "But... I don't know how to explain. Stuff's complicated at the moment."

Peter kneeled to get a closer look at her face. It had become paler. She had been having all kind of sudden changes in attitude and mood, possibly meaning that her guest was becoming impatient. Scary thought.- "My bad. I shouldn't have let that slip."- he rubbed her arched back gently. It felt like one unique block of hardened muscles.

"No, I'm glad you did. I need to have that conversation with him as soon as possible. This is hurting me, but I know it hurt him more."- she moaned. Her back was starting to ache again, discomfort spreading to her legs and arms too this time. Cold water called her, strongly- "And this damned pain..."

"You want me to get you a Tylenol?"- Peter asked, his hand traveling to her neck and shoulders. Muscles had hardened there too.

"Tylenol doesn't work."- she replied, covering her eyes. Maybe darkness could have eased her up a bit, but she felt it would have been useless- "I need a bath. It's gonna go away if I relax for a while."

"We can't let you take a bath right now."- Winston stood up from his seat and crouched in front of her. He added an excuse he hoped would have convinced her without making her suspect about the real meaning behind that prohibition- "You know we promised to keep an eye on you at all times. Things would get pretty awkward."

"I... really need cold water right now."- Janine uttered. The pain was still there. It had come and gone other times during the day, in almost perfect synchrony with her feeling upset or calm. At the moment she felt calm again, but she somewhat knew that the pain wasn't about to go away.

Time to come up with a plan. They needed cold water. But she couldn't be in water.

Would ice be a trigger too? But they didn't have real ice, they only had chemical dry ice.

The two men got to the same conclusion at the same time and looked at each other.

In perfect agreement, Peter fled to go dig up their ice packs from the freezer.

"We'll try and apply some ice on your back if that's okay with you."- Winston spoke slowly to make sure she understood. She moaned a 'yes', keeping her eyes tightly covered with her hands- "You think you can make it upstairs or you prefer me to carry you?"

"Please, carry me."

* * *

Ray forgot about Delacroix the moment Egon put in his hand the papers with the translation.

It was a small amount of text, seemingly useless to their case. Indeed they had discarded that particular book at first. It wasn't a Spirit Guide, an occultism manual or a religious text or anything else they would list as relevant. It was a collection of ancient orally conveyed stories, dating back to years and years prior to the writing of that book- which was really old itself.

The tale that he had selected carried, thanks to Egon's accurate rendition, the suggestive title of 'The Serpent of Vanity'.

"If only we had read this immediately..."- the occultist breathed, his eyes glued to the paper.

"It wasn't relevant."- Egon reminded him- "Our informations about Janine's situation were too partial to have a real reason to consider this tale."

"...yeah. Even if we did read it, we wouldn't have known how to interpret it."- Ray discarded at once the vague hint of guilt he had started to feel and kept reading- "It's all there. The physical and psychological changes, the pain, the water."- he paused- "...there is no happy ending."

Egon was about to start a complex dissertation about the unnecessarity of happy endings in such ancient tales because their primary function would be to moralize the masses, but he had to keep that thought to himself. The opened door of the lab let them see Winston approach, carrying Janine in his arms.

Ray's voice saying '_there is no happy ending_' echoed ominously in the physicist's ears.

* * *

Janine remembered fainting somewhere in the middle of someone lifting her up from the armchair.

When she came to, after confused dreams she couldn't remember, she felt a different kind of pain.

Her boobs ached. And her ass was freezing.

Something cold and slightly wet weighted on her back. It felt good though.

As if in the middle of some of those sci-fi movies her bosses loved so much, she had woken up on a wide table, in her undies and lying flat on her belly- which was the reason for her breasts' discomfort.

Half expecting to see aliens surrounding her, she didn't open her eyes, paying attention to the sounds around her. As her brain resumed working normally, she got aware of the fact that a conversation was taking place.

"_We can't keep her away from __the water for much longer. We gotta find a way to end this."_

Peter's voice. Yup. He sounded upset. She wondered how long she had been off.

On second thought... water? Why would they worry about water?

The voices kept talking as she furiously mulled over Peter's sentence.

She'd been dreaming about the Ocean. Been needing to bathe increasingly often.

That night one month earlier she had followed the Fairy Godmother to the harbor. Then what?

Egon powering up his proton pack and aiming it at the Godmother had been her last memory all along.

Fragments of sounds and sensations came back to her. Her body and mind were numb enough to let her focus on such faint shards of memories. She had heard him scream in pain. A thud. Had he fainted?

A bright light had engulfed everything. Then...

She had been floating in the air, but at the same time sinking in the cold waters.

That pervasive sense of peace and warmth. She had dreamed so much about it.

Under water she had changed. No, that was not it...

Realization hit her hard. She had no scientific or demonologic or whatever other kind of knowledge to back up her theory. But it wasn't a theory. It was the truth. She didn't need no proof to know it was.

Rolling on one side made the ice packs fall from her back. She curled up in a fetal position and cried all the tears she had left to cry. She didn't feel the need to yell, not even the need to sob or sigh. Tears just very calmly queued inside of her lacrimal ducts and one by one rolled down her face.

The men around her tried to get her to tell them what was wrong, if she was still in pain. Asked her to tell 'em anything to let them know she was alright.

Answering any of those questions was of no use. Her throat closed, she remained silent.

She felt arms lifting her in a sitting position and holding her.

Blindly she pressed herself against that warm body she was being offered, letting what was left of her pain escape through her eyes.

* * *

Her reaction had scared them all enough to make the others prompt Egon to take her to the bedroom and try to calm her down, hoping she would have reacted positively to his presence.

A meter and walkie talkie on the nightstand and a proton pack next to the bed, he was left alone with her. She had fallen asleep again.

Egon wasn't sure about what had happened, but something inside told him the ending of that modern version of 'The Serpent of Vanity' was drawing near. There was something in her crying, so different than the violent eruption she had had the night before, that he didn't have words to describe, but that felt like she was giving up.

Not knowing exactly what to do, favored by the privacy they were being given, he spent that time with her holding her close and telling her about many little things popping into his mind: the first memories he had of her, random funny moments they had shared and that he had remembered just recently. Scattered pieces of the eventful life they had lived together.

After all, they had always been so close to each other but had never let themselves get close enough to become one.

* * *

"Alright guys. This is it."- Ray set aside the bucket. They had dried the lab's floor and cleaned the work table. Time to find a solution.- "I don't know how long it will take her to come back to her senses, but we're solving this now."

They decided they would have bothered the physicist only if necessary.

Not only he had just had a really tiresome day, but also Janine's reaction had left him very agitated.

He definitely needed to be given some time alone. And while he was at it he could watch over her.

"What's in that story Egon translated?"- Winston didn't waste time. Her condition had aggravated so suddenly that it was making them all fear for the worse.

"There's this Prince. He's looking for a wife, so his father orders all the maiden in the kingdom to go to this huge party."- Ray started, gathering on the table all the material they had.

"An Indian Cinderella."- Peter commented, sitting down at the table- "With some help from a very special Fairy Godmother, she could marry the prince."

Ray loved Peter's ability to guess and summarize at the same time- "Exactly. But there's a price to pay that Cinderella doesn't know."

"Accidentally sold her soul to the Devil?"- Winston guessed without much confidence.

"It's bad, but not that bad."- Ray said, then he thought a bit about it- "I think it's less bad. Maybe."

Winston frowned- "What's this 'less bad' price to pay, then?"

"One month of absolutely perfect beauty in exchange for her body."

"..Her body...?"- The psychologist echoed.

"In this tale, it says that it takes a complete lunar cycle for a new Serpent to be born. So about one month."- Ray glanced at the translation to make sure he wasn't missing anything- "During that time life is drained from the host and used to prepare their human body for the final transformation. At the end of incubation time, the girl is compelled to return to where she has received her beauty, which in this tale is a lake...and drown herself. The new demon then snatches her body."

"We're dangerously approaching the end of the cycle."- Peter glanced at the calendar.

"Our situation is different then. What about that feather?"- Winston had picked up the list they had written. That feather had to mean something.

"It doesn't say anything about feathers, but..."- the occultist skimmed through the text once again- "Oh wait. It's not a feather but it says that upon the death of the chosen maiden, her essence is released under the shape of a bright, beautiful bird, flying up high to the Moon, where souls are judged. The Serpent then takes 'Cinderella''s place as the Princess. The demon's life cycle is completed and it can hunt for a new maiden."

Peter picked up the sheets from Ray's hands and read the final part of the tale again- "We don't have no bird, but Egon swears he's seen a bright light and an angel-winged version of Janine fly away. And it makes no sense because as we all can see, she's not dead and still being transformed."

"We busted the Makeoveris. We must have modified something."- Winston read again and again their list in his mind. Furiously.- "She is far from perfect. I mean, her personality had a lot of glitches and Egon could restore much of it by simply rubbing her the right way."

The situation was critical, but Peter couldn't help chuckling- "Perfect words' choice."

Ray gave the men a really baffled look.

Winston glared at Peter, then prompted Ray to resume perusing the papers- "Don't mind him. So let's say we have a feather of the bird and our Serpent was interrupted halfway during the fusion with her."

"If the fusion isn't complete, let's force that thing out of her."- Peter wanted some action, he didn't feel like planning anymore- "We can put together something to do that, right? Ray?"

Ray nodded. Time to project and build some new toy.  
But he felt that there was something important that felt off and he didn't know what.

* * *

After more than one hour of deep sleep, Janine snuffled.

Egon put a paper tissue in her hand to see if she had reached a state of consciousness high enough to blow her nose. She did.

"Awake?"

To his question she hummed. It felt cozy, she didn't want to wake. But her body was done resting.

"Let's go out."- she said, her voice suddenly similar to her original one.

"Out? Where to?"

"Anywhere."

"You know we can't."- he replied, covering her shoulders again with the blanket: it had slid off when she had moved.- "We still have to figure you out."

Janine sat up and straightened her back, the blanket slid down her shoulders again.

She looked at him- "I've figured."

"Oh, good... wait, what?"- that new info left him speechless.

"I know what's happening to me."- she wasn't afraid. Wasn't angry. Didn't feel guilt. Peace felt good at last- "I'm dead, Egon. This entity is what's keeping what's left of me going."

"You're not dead, you're..."

She stopped him with a gesture of her hand- "I remembered what happened that night."

He stayed silent, letting her tell her tale. She described all that had happened. She started from when the Fairy Godmother had lured her to the harbor to escape from them.

He could confirm much of her memories.- "Yes, after she blasted me I fell down. I was stunned but I didn't faint."

"After that... here it gets weird. I was so confused... I tripped on a rope and fell down from the dock. Then it felt like I was in two places at the same time. I was flying, but I also was plunging deep into the water..."- she smiled nervously- "She came for me to complete the transformation, but I couldn't breathe. And I didn't fight it."

"I'm not saying that I believe this. But why did you not fight it?"- Egon conceded for argument's sake. He wouldn't have accepted her claim so easily.

"She had told me she would have given me her beauty by giving a part of herself to me. So I thought that if I died right in the middle of the process... then that bitch would have died too."- Janine hesitated, then added something more- "Before falling down I saw the look in your eyes. You didn't want to lose me. It made me realize the mistake I was making. And I didn't want her to kill you and the guys. So I stopped fighting. I drowned."

"You didn't drown. Peter dived."- he remembered that well. His friends hadn't let him go instead because he was still stunned by the blow, else he would have- "You resumed breathing as soon as he pushed you out of the water."

"I know it's hard to believe, but I died."- she insisted- "Why then would this entity be so weak? Why is it eating me so slowly? That's because there's nothing to eat. It's dying inside me, and the moment it'll be dead, I will be dead-dead. As in really dead."

"Stop saying 'dead', please."- he furrowed his eyebrows.

She passed her arms around his neck and held him- "Sorry."

"If you're feeling better now, then let's get to the lab and discover what really happened."

"Okay."- she kissed his neck. Poor thing, he didn't want to give up. But it was to be expected from him, it was one of the reasons she admired him for- "Will you take me out after that?"

"We'll see about it."- he gave up to her and relaxed a little bit, rubbing her nose with his- "I won't let you go that easily."

Janine gave out a sweet little giggle.

She had read somewhere that rubbing noses is to be considered even more intimate than some good frenching, so she always felt as if she had won the lottery when he gifted her with some Eskimo loving.- "Oh, and... Egon?"

"Yes?"

"I didn't go to bed with him."

The sudden information made the man choke on his own saliva and he needed a couple of vigorous slaps on his back to stop coughing.

* * *

"Hey guys."

Janine entered the lab, still dressed in the wide t-shirt they had tucked her in. It barely covered her ass, but she didn't care if they could see her body. She didn't have any feeling of pride for it anymore.

They didn't miss her voice being different. Half expecting to see a petite redhead looking at them from the door, they stopped working at once and raised their heads.

She was still blonde, still tall and still curvy. But the way she stood and her whole body language felt a lot like her original self.

"Damn, if we had known it worked so well we'd have locked you two guys into a room first place."- Peter smiled widely. It was her at last.

"Let's be serious for a moment, here."- Egon wasn't feeling like leisure. He was refusing to believe to what Janine had just told him, but something at the back of his mind bugged him.- "Why are you modifying a pack?"

"We've been brainstorming a little. Right now I'm building a special stream modulator."- Ray couldn't wait to tell him about his idea- "By modifying the proton stream we could isolate the correct frequency at which we'll be able to further weaken the entity, so that it will be possible to easily separate it from Janine's body."

"Oh, that sounds interesting."- the physicist sat down at the table- "How do you intend to do it?"

Ray handed him a paper on which he had jotted down his idea in more detail- "Well, we know for sure now that the Makeoveris is an obligate parasite. If we can simulate the energy of a stronger demon of the same kind and charge her cells with it..."

The secretary gave him a puzzled look: she usually didn't need a real time translator to understand him. She raised one hand.

"He's planning to blast you and force the sucker out."- Peter did the translating. He didn't like Ray's plan, but he didn't have anything better to offer.

"With this modifier, the stream won't be lethal."- Ray quickly amended Peter's statement- "It won't be a pleasant sensation, but it should get the job done."

"It will get the parasite out, but I have doubts about her body being able to handle the stress."- Egon passed judgment on the paper he was given. He stood up again and started to copy Ray's notes on the blackboard, so that they could all brainstorm together.

"You think the power would be too low?"- Ray followed him and looked at the blackboard.

"I really don't like this idea."- Janine's voice was pretty stern- "I don't wanna find out what it feels like to be grilled."

"That's what would happen if we'd add more power to fasten up the process."- Egon stressed one part of the equation with a red piece of chalk- "The stream would produce too much heat, consequently damaging the internal organs."

"But if we leave it as it is, it will take minutes to saturate the cells."- the occultist tapped his finger on the board.

Winston could now see all kind of problems coming out from their idea- "That time I was hit by a low power stream it lasted a second, but I couldn't breathe and had trouble breathing for some minutes."

"Man, I remember that time."- Peter remembered also those endless moments of CPR they needed to reset Winston's heart and lungs- "Wasn't pretty. "

"I don't think this modified stream would have that effect, but I can't be one hundred percent sure."- Ray scratched his head- "Then, plan B. We can modify a trap and suck it out. In that case..."

"Guys... it's really not necessary. It's gonna end soon anyways."- Janine said from her spot by the table. She felt like a terminally ill patient. Didn't want no unnecessary cures anymore, just felt like enjoying the time she had left. And maybe some more ice if her back acted up again.

"Did... something happen?"- Ray didn't like the look that had just appeared on the physicist's face. It felt like trouble and it aggravated his own doubts.

Janine joined the two of them in front of the blackboard.  
"I remembered about the night the Godmother tricked us. But he won't believe me."

"That's because your claim is illogical."- Egon clarified.

"Can you tell us too?"- Winston asked. He hoped he wouldn't later regret asking.

Janine nodded, but her throat closed. It was much harder to tell everyone.

Egon's hand casually plopped on her shoulder, offering an unexpected support. She smiled at him, leaning against him, then took a deep breath and confessed her truth.

As to be expected, the woman's words left everyone speechless. It was hard to believe her, as she was standing right in front of them breathing and all. Ray's brain suddenly enlightened him about that detail that had been bothering him for the past hour and a half- "It makes sense. Sort of."

They were in possess of that luminescent feather, fallen from the wings of an angelic version of Janine.

The Princess ascending to the Moon under the form of a bird was an imagery closely tied to the religious culture and common beliefs of those ancient times. As much as Egon could be an atheist, he had been absorbing anyways the symbolism of religious nature of which culture is imbued.

So, to him, the bird flying to the Moon had become an angel ascending to Heavens.

"How is it making sense to you, Ray?"- Egon asked. He admitted to himself being too involved to be thinking straight, which was bad. He needed to think straight. Badly.

Her arms were still tightly wrapped around his waist and feeling her heart beating wasn't helping him to analyze the matter neutrally.

"She's evidently not biologically dead, we don't need an expert to assess that."- the younger man stated- "But there are other meanings to the concept of being dead. For example it's common to find literature about people who had sold their soul reporting a sense of not feeling 'alive', and..."

"I think I get it now. Thank you."- the physicist, thanks to that input, was starting to piece things together in his mind.- "Very fascinating prospective."

"Oh, you're welcome." - Ray smiled, as if they just had an exchange about the quality of the weather.

Silence fell on everyone. Except for the two men standing in front of the board smiling satisfaction, no one had found their conversation useful.

Janine started to feel impatient- "Are you saying the bitch stole my soul?"

"Actually... "- Winston was starting to understand the situation, piecing together the Indian tale and the events at the harbor. Or at least he thought he was. Maybe that feather really was a shard of her.- "Some bitch might have taken it but, if I'm getting things right, it wasn't your Fairy Godmother."

Peter snickering made Janine feel the unpleasant sensation of being the only one missing some vital detail.

"Am I missing something here?"- she asked, feeling a faint pain rising from the same damn spot on her back. Negativity was definitely a trigger, alright.

"You are, but it's better off this way. We know for sure that this entity can read your emotional states, but we can't be sure it isn't able to read your mind." - Ray answered her question the only way he felt it was safe to- "Just trust us, ok?"

Janine nodded, holding on her man a bit tighter to ease the pressure of her own weight on her back.  
Egon felt her shifting some of her weight on him and slid down around her torso the arm he had on her shoulders to support her- "Is your knee hurting again?"- he hoped it was the knee. He wasn't sure whether the ice trick would work again or not.

"Knee's fine. My back seems to enjoy giving me hell as soon as I am in a negative mood. And it feels like now it needs very little negativity to act up."- she fought the worry and tried to put her mind again in that state of peace she had been basking in only a few minutes earlier- "That's why I think it's dying. It's feeding so desperately on anything I can offer that it feels like it's fighting for its life."

"It won't take long for us to figure out how to take care of this. Why don't you go downstairs and have something to eat?"- the physicist didn't want to leave her alone at such a bad time, but they needed to hurry. The lunar month would be over in 48 hours, but it looked like shit was about to hit the fan much sooner than that.- "We'll take turns to watch over you."

"Alright Cinderella! Let the strong arms of this devoted servant carry you to the comfort of the royal couch."- Peter stood up, volunteering for the first turn.

Having not read the tale, Janine found that sentence kind of disturbing and amusing at the same time. She laughed and graciously accepted the offer of her 'devoted servant'.

* * *

"Everything's coming to place at last."- Ray carried a stool in front of the board and sat down- "It was so simple all along."

Winston was of a different opinion- "I wouldn't say it was 'simple'. Finding our way though all of the misleading evidence has been a pain."

"We do have a coherent theory about the life cycle of this parasite, but we still need to find a way to extract it without damaging her tissues."- Egon erased the blackboard and started writing a list of problems they needed to overcome- "She's very debilitated, both mentally and physically, making it very risky to brutally force the entity out of her."

Ray felt bad for her- "Poor thing. Luckily she seems to get better if you stay close. You might make that little difference that we need."

"Love saves the day."- Winston commented from the table, causing the physicist to press a little too much as he wrote on the blackboard and break the chalk.

"Guys, please?"

Winston picked a new piece of chalk from the drawer and handed it to him- "Sorry, man. It's almost impossible not to tease you about it."

Egon accepted the chalk and was about to resume writing when Ray laid it on thicker:

"It's unusual to see you act all protective and cute like that. It's gonna be interesting to see how things will evolve after this is over. What if she asks you to move in with her?"

"...Ray..."- the physicist felt anxiety go through the roof. Stuff was getting scary. What if she really would propose such an intimidating thing?

One month wasn't enough for him to admit he loved her _and_ move together. Maybe even ten years would never be enough to give up his beloved bachelor freedom.

"That would be so totally cool! You'd spend a lot of time together and come hand in hand to the office in the morning and..."- Ray kept describing the elaborated and vivid love scenery that those two evoked in his mind.

"You really need to find a girlfriend, Raymond."- Egon sentenced, starting to feel that, if he really let his unconventional romantic relationship grow further, he would have to fight for his privacy with those three fierce mothers-in-law that his friends were revealing to be.

* * *

"I don't know why you suddenly decided to become my servant, but you gotta know that I'm enjoying it."- Janine was comfortably slumped on the couch with a big cup of tea in her hands.

"We need to keep you happy, don't we?"- Peter sat down at the other end of the couch and pulled up his legs, crossing them.

"A raise would make me really happy."- she said from behind her cup, blowing on the liquid to cool it down.

The man chuckled- "Always thinking about money, aren't you?"

"A girl can't survive on tea and good times."- she replied, smiling.

"Also boys can't survive on those things."- he poked her calf with his foot- "And we got waaaay more bills to pay than you do."

"I can never win against you, can I?"- Janine laughed, poking him back with her own foot.

Peter at last felt that stuff was normal again between them- "Looks are still not quite right, but It's good to have you back."

"You're getting too sentimental. They say it happens with old age."- she replied, sipping her tea.

He snorted- "That scalding tea is the only thing saving you from retaliation."

Janine giggled, taking another sip- "Do you think it'll take long?"

"Ray had a lot of ideas already and if Egon's brain is feeling like working at full power, it won't take them long to find a solution." - Peter knew he couldn't do much at that stage, so he would have done his best to keep her entertained and serene- "They only have to pick a way to root evil from your body. Then we'll all have some fun trapping this damned parasite."

She frowned. The extraction part worried her. She didn't like pain.

"Now, don't go all dark on me."- he added- "If you get the ache again, we'll have to extract Egon from the lab, and you can see why it wouldn't do any good."

"You're right."- Janine admitted, putting down the emptied mug. As much as she had been loving the attention she was getting from the man she loved, she didn't want to sabotage her own rescue. Once everything would be over, she'd have all the time in the world to be with him.- "It's not like me to be this weak. I'm gonna fight it."

"Wanna play cards while you fight it?"- Peter suggested with a grin on his face- "If you win you can have the guy for two weeks."

Stuff was getting interesting. She copied his grin- "What if I lose?"

"If you lose you'll take care of my cooking duties for two weeks."- Peter had too many parties and nights out planned to bother waking up in time to cook meals.

"Seems fair."- she held out her hand for him to shake- "Deal."

They shook hands and moved to the dining table to play some.

* * *

Two small black box-shaped devices laid aligned on the table. It hadn't taken them much to assemble the two modulators. Installing them would have been easy, so they would bother only later, if they decided to use them.

"So we agree we'll use a modified proton stream only as our last resort."- Egon said, waiting for his friends to nod in agreement- "Our second choice will be to modify a trap and use it to force the entity to detach from her tissues."

"We need a first choice."- Winston stated the obvious- "But how do we take it out without stressing her body too much? What do doctors use to kill parasites?"

"Years and years ago, when my aunt's dog got a tapeworm the vet prescribed him some stuff that was toxic for the worm and caused it to die and be expelled naturally."- Ray tried to remember more about it- "I can't remember the name of the medicine, but I don't think something like this would work. If we'd give Janine such a strong medicine without a good reason she'd have a toxic shock."

That whole matter about Janine being convinced of being dead and her feeling that the entity was starving kept disturbing Egon, but it also gave him a wild idea. To kill an obligate parasite either you force it out or you kill the host. And there are many definition of 'being dead', as Ray had reminded him earlier.

"Janine said she feels the parasite is desperate. Without her..'soul', it doesn't have much nourishment to begin with. Which explains why her body is modifying so slowly, even with her taking frequent baths. We could say that right now this entity is feeding solely on her negative emotions."- the physicist reasoned aloud.

"And those emotions are far from enough to the Makeoveris to be able to complete its life cycle."- Ray completed his colleague's line of thought.

Egon nodded- "Exactly. So I wonder: what would happen if she would stop feeling emotions? Would the entity lose its grip on her and let us remove it by using a simple trap?"

"Like a sleep without dreams?"- Winston asked. It made sense- "I remember Peter telling me about some hypnosis experiments he did in college to control dreams. Could it work to eliminate them too?"

"Did he also tell you about all the pot they smoked during those 'experiments'?"- Ray snickered.

It wasn't really a serious project and when Egon had discovered about the drugs he had got pissed off so badly that Peter had to quit it immediately.

It had been some bad fight between the two of them, one of the worse Ray had ever witnessed.

"Nope, he didn't. Just told me he had to quit."- Winston wasn't surprised. The guy had experimented much of what college had to offer, pot included. No biggie.- "But that experience could be useful to us anyways. If that thing's so weak as Janine says it is, could a whole night of dreamless sleep work?"

"The only way of knowing is trying it, I am afraid."- Egon knew where it would have headed and, as much as he could be against drugs, he'd much rather have her hypnotized and maybe given a joint than having to blast her with a modified stream they didn't have means to test beforehand- "Let's go talk with Peter."

* * *

They walked down to the second floor to find a heated battle going on in the dining area.

"Hah! Take this!" - Janine slammed one card on the table- "I won!"

Peter grimaced, gathering the cards to shuffle them- "Calm down... it's just a tie. I'm gonna ruin you on next round."

"Which will happen after a short break."

Winston's voice made the two turn to look at the men looking at them.

"Is it time already?"- Janine asked, standing up to receive her verdict- "How do we do this?"

"We might have a non-traumatic strategy to remove the parasite." - Egon said. He still had doubts but it couldn't hurt to try- "We'd like to have a talk with Peter before deciding, if that's not a problem."

"Can I go shower while you guys talk?"- she asked. Lots of stuff had happened and she felt like she could use one.

The men looked at each other. Shower meant water. Lots of water. But they couldn't deny her a shower, could they?

"Don't take more than ten minutes."- Egon conceded, taking mental note of the need to remove the bath's plug before letting her go- "We'll wait out of the door."

They waited for the shower to be turned on to inform Peter about their new theories, keeping their voices low. It was probably an unnecessary precaution but at that point they didn't want to take no risks.

"So I have to try and hypnotize her?"- the man asked. It had been so long since he had been studying that stuff. And it was mostly to impress girls.

"If we can put her in a state of relaxation so deep that she is able to stop feeling emotions for long enough, it might just work."- Ray replied- "Maybe it's not even necessary for her to be asleep. We need to...uhm... make the entity think she's dead or dying."

"Wouldn't it be better to call our doctor and ask if we can arrange a general anesthesia?"- Peter remembered enough about his hypnology studies to know that opioid medications were also used to cure night terrors, so they were strong enough to suppress dreams.

He sadly couldn't say that he remembered hypnotism as well.

Egon shook his head- "Too risky. We need to be able to wake her up fast if anything goes wrong. And it would take days to arrange it. Your setup is much faster to organize and relatively safe."

"Egon, you remember that 'study' as well as I do. You went batshit insane when you found the pot I used to induce the hypnotic state in my experimental subjects."- Peter frowned, that time he had been so close to taking his favorite guinea pig out on a hot date. Which had never happened because of him- "You're not suggesting I have to give Big J a joint made of the finest cannabis indica I can find, have a smoke with her and then speak calmly to her until she is 'hypnotized' in a state of deep, dreamless sleep. Are you?"

"I am. And I am also about to suggest that we should tell her the drug will be necessary to give her some kind of mild stress relief before we extract the entity."- the physicist simply replied. It wasn't a matter of morals, they were down to pick the lesser evil.

"This shit is messing with your head good. First I catch you smoking a cigarette and then a few hours later you're telling me you're cool with drugging our secretary. What's next?"- Peter couldn't hold back sarcasm. Once again, he felt tempted to go get a meter and see if his friends had been possessed too.

"There's no next and my head is perfectly fine. But if you prefer to do things the hard way and then have to explain police about how we killed her because we accidentally caused her internal organs to melt due to an untested modified proton stream..."- Egon tried to keep his voice normal, but the deep wrinkle now corrugating his forehead gave away the internal battle he was fighting to allow himself to approve illegal drugs usage as a desperate measure to save the day.

The psychologist raised his hands in defeat- "Alright, alright. Sorry about that. I'll do it."

* * *

"Don't mean to offend you guys, but I'm not sure you know what you're doing."

Janine was sitting at the dining table with a pizza in front of her.

She had been informed about their plan of action as they were waiting for the delivery.

Peter felt it would have been hard to convince her- "We're suggesting a way to keep emotional stress down while we take care of the problem."

"Yeah, but I've never done drugs before. What tells you I won't have some kind of allergic reaction? Or maybe I'll like it and will get addicted. Who knows."

Egon wondered if he should have told her that there were no scientific evidences of cannabis having such strong addictive properties, but he wasn't gonna become an apologist of drugs just yet.

"We could ask an expert."- Ray put in- "Like a toxicologist or a chemist working in the pharmaceutical field. Maybe there are legal medications that we could use that we don't know about."

Again, the Occam razor was chopping them up good. Why hadn't they thought about legal stuff first? Egon's mind started to feel more at peace now that he could see legal and less dangerous ways to do it.

"We have some benzodiazepins stashed in the med cabinet."- Winston reminded them. From time to time they happened to use something to cut anxiety down after a particularly bad bust- "But where do we find an expert at 7 pm to know if what we have is gonna do the job?"

Silence fell on them. That was an interesting question.

Everyone resumed eating without uttering a single word. That was a problem.

"But off course"- Egon stopped staring at his untouched pizza- "Delacroix. He told me he's working in the medicinal field."

"I'm not calling him."- Peter muttered from behind the slice of pizza he was attacking.

"We do have a secretary."- Egon's laconic statement produced a wave of twisted amusement in his colleagues. They all turned to look expectantly at Janine.

The woman stuck up her nose- "I can call him, but if he hates you guys so much he could just tell me a bunch of bullshit."

"They told him that your apartment's been infested by some scary demon."- Ray loved the idea too much to just drop it- "Just tell him we suck at our job and that your apartment is not clear yet. Ask him about what you could use to get rid of anxiety."

"Oh, believe me: he wouldn't simply give me a lecture about pills."- Janine didn't have doubts about that.- "He'd be more likely to offer me a dinner and a hot night at his place."

"Use your newly attained supernatural charms to rub him the right way."- the physicist suggested- "He's just a man after all"

"A _normal_ one."- Peter added, smirking.

Egon ripped a piece of his paper towel, rolled it into a ball and threw it at his friend.


	7. Chapter 6

Worst ten minutes of the year. The year had just begun, but Egon had no doubts about those ten minutes being the absolute worst he would get that year.

He and his colleagues stood scattered around Janine's desk as she shalemessly flirted on the phone.

He couldn't tell if her voice had changed again or if she was voluntarily trying to sound like her artificial self from a few hours earlier, but the results were toxic to his nerves.

Sitting down on the stairs, Egon tried to act nonchalantly by reading the billing file of the month. Which was depressing but at least not pissing him off.

"Not regretting your fantastic idea, are you?"- Peter whispered, sitting down by him. He was impressed by Janine's behavioural change, that had happened as soon as her target had picked up the phone. He wouldn't admit it openly but he had taken mental note of some of her flirty lines. It was some pretty good material.

The other man just glared at him, then resumed reading about the poor state of their bank account.

Soon enough all four of them were sitting on the stairs. She was having some hard time battling to have the info by phone and fending off the offers to have a talk at his place or in a restaurant. The guy was persistent as hell.

Five more minutes later, Janine put down the receiver and walked past the men and up the stairs- "Best offer I could snatch is a quick drink at the cafè down the road. I'll go get decent."

"Don't get too decent."- Peter couldn't help recommending before she disappeared upstairs.

"What you waiting for? Follow her."- Winston prompted Egon, who had been silent all along- "We still need to keep an eye on her, remember?"

"I... don't really feel like it."- the blond muttered. He couldn't decide if it was her attitude or the fact that it was Delacroix she was using her charms on, but it had definitely stirred him towards a dangerously silent jealousy fit.

"It'd get really awkward if any other of us stalked her while she 'gets decent', you know." - Peter reminded him- "And she wouldn't let us. _And_ we need to make sure she's safe at all times."

"I get it, I get it."- Egon huffed and swallowed the toad. He put down the billing files and walked up the stairs.

They waited for him to be gone before daring to talk.

"This ain't gonna end well."- Winston sentenced. The others nodded solemnly.

* * *

Janine was already in the bathroom when she heard knocking on the door. She put the oversized T-shirt back on and opened the door- "Hello. Have you been elected as my new guardian?"

"Sorry, I'm not in the mood to joke."- Egon walked past her and sat down on the bath's edge.

"So you gonna just watch me undress without even offering me some conversation?"- she provoked him. Those twenty minutes on the phone had made strongly emerge her fake personality.

He wasn't sure she was even aware of the change, and wasn't sure why she had changed - which made him regret his lighthearted decision to propose to make her call Delacroix.

He had provoked her first, so he decided it wasn't the right moment to have an attitude- "I'll look away when you'll undress, don't worry."

"I don't mind if you look, you know that."- She took off the shirt again and sat by him in her underwear.

"Janine, you're not acting like yourself." - he looked away, wanting to respect the privacy she'd have probably wished for.

She gave him a baffled look- "Ain't I?"

The lost look face she put up made him relax a little bit. He handed her the discarded t-shirt for her to put it back on again, she complied.

"You're acting predatory."- he passed an arm around her waist- "Just close your eyes for a second, take a couple of deep breaths."

Janine obeyed, holding him in silence. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, soon starting to feel her chest lighter. She came to the conclusion that she had been somewhat controlled again by her guest. It made her miss terribly the peaceful state of mind she had achieved only a couple of hours earlier.

"I'm sorry, it was a bad idea to have you call him."- he rested his head against hers- "You don't have to go, we can find some other way."

"I'll do it. I feel like we don't have time to spare."- she still was convinced that they couldn't do anything anymore to save her, but she wanted to let them try all they could. To ease their minds and be sure they wouldn't feel guilty after she'd be gone- "Or... Do you not want me to do it?"

"I think he makes me upset more than everything. I don't trust him. But I trust you."- he gently detached from her- "Get ready, so you won't be late."

"Will you guys come with me?"- she asked, standing up. She had been feeling drawn towards Marcus for reasons she couldn't understand. Yes, she was just looking for easy prays to test her charms on, and he had taken the bait nice and easy. But definitely not her type.

Yet there was something in that man that made her feel drawn to him. Else she'd have forever erased him from her phone book at once after he had shamelessly tried to force her to kiss him on their first and only date.

Egon followed her with his eyes as she resumed doing her hair in front of the mirror- "We won't be able to be inside the place, as it's too small to hide. But we'll be watching from as close as we can."

Janine felt much better hearing those words and smiled.

He smiled back, but the knot he felt in his throat tightened as only one thought kept roaming through his mind:

"_There is no happy ending."_

* * *

Marcus got off of the taxi perfectly dressed and ready to turn that quick meeting at a coffee into a really wonderful and hopefully eventful date. Having bragged with one of her bosses, now he had to wrap it up and smoothly show her the way to his bedroom.

He headed into the cafè and picked a corner seat. She was being a bit late, but it had to be expected.

Ordering a decaffeinated coffee, he replayed the conversation he had with her on the phone.

So those four jackasses weren't even able to keep spooks away from their secretary's home. The news had caused a wave of satisfaction run through him. She had to be in a lot of distress to call him asking about sleeping pills and antidepressants.

He couldn't understand why she had insisted on meeting so close to the Ghostbusters' office. He hoped it wasn't so that her bosses could stalk them out. Or worse, what if the demon had attached to her and those idiots needed to be close to patch up the situation if anything went wrong?

In movies it happened, so it could maybe happen in real life too. That line of thought made him very nervous.

But when the little bell over the door dingled, making Marcus look up, all nervousness faded away.

There she was, that golden haired goddess, clad in the grey cotton of her office outfit that made her perfect skin almost glow under the lights. He felt like he didn't just want her in his bed. He plain and straight wanted her. Such a beautiful wife would have opened him the doors to New York's socialitè events, granted him fame.

He raised his hand to silently call her, she noticed it and those luscious lips spread in a graceful smile. As she walked to join him, he noticed her movements weren't as model-like as the last time he had seen her. Also her eyes looked less shiny.

He took them as signs of distress.

"Hey."- she greeted him in a very simple manner, sitting down in front of him.

"Good Evening."- he replied, discreetly observing her face. Her eyes looked different than the sky blue he remembered, but he had met her by night and hadn't really paid attention to the eyes, so he couldn't be sure- "How are you?"

The waitress appeared before she could reply, so she quickly ordered a coffee and a piece of cheesecake. He ordered the same as her.

"I'm so tired, Marcus."- she sighed- "I'm so upset I can't even sleep at night."

"Do you want to talk a little about it?"- he asked- "You've been rather evasive on the phone."

She mentally recalled the details of the lie Egon had told him earlier that afternoon before answering. A little dramatic silence could only do good to her victim role.

"Oh it's so horrible. All this time i've worked for the Ghostbusters i've never seen such an awful haunt."- she shamelessly lied, tamponing an imaginary tear with a plain cotton handkerchief she had in her jacket's poket.

The waitress interrupted him as he was about to slide his hand on the table to pat her hand.

Why service had to be so good at such a critical time?

They thanked her and Janine's hand slipped out of reach to wrap around her cup. She brought it to her lips and blew lightly to cool down its boiling content.

He found that simple gesture so stunningly cute he had troubles not staring at her mouth. Which was ridicolous because she was so taken by her drink that he could be staring at her boobs instead.

Not being the time to act like a douche, he didn't stare at either of those parts and directed his attention to his own coffee.

"Why is it so horrible?"- he resumed conversation when she put down the cup.

"My home's completely devastated, even the neighbours had to move out too."- she said. Egon hadn't laid it down so thick, but something inside her told her that it couldn't hurt to be dramatical about it.- "I don't know if I'll ever be able to even step in there again even just to pick my stuff. If there is any left in decent conditions. Worked all my life to buy that apartment, and now..."- she shook her head- "All I own is what I have on me right now. The guys said they will help me, and I believe they will. But it's all so depressing. I just wish i could sleep, get the screeches of that demon out of my ears."

"I'm so sorry. I hadn't imagined it to be so bad."- he was genuinely worrying. How could those animals let her down so much?- "I'll do anything I can to help."

"Thank you so much, Marcus."- She smiled between fake tears she kept pretending to dry.

The sharp pain in her back made her mind feel comfortably numb and, as if following an unwritten script, she let her hand rest on the table.

He finally could cover her hand with his own, and she let him.

"I said '_anything_'."- he repeated suggestively, looking straight into her magnetic eyes.

Her stunningly blue eyes.

* * *

"Dude's right on time. Like a swiss clock. Over."- Peter commented into the walkie talkie from his hiding spot on the other side of the road. He was cramped inside a phone booth with Ray, whom was busy stalking the cafè with his beloved infrared goggles. Which were useless, but they made stuff more fun.

"Or like death. Over."

"I don't like it when you get this dark, Egon."- Peter replied, trying to act nonchalant as people walked by.- "Over."

"He ordered something."- Ray whispered, taken by his inner mental movie about himself being a great spy. People passing by and giving the two men weird looks were of a completely different opinion, but he evidently didn't care.

"Janine's just out of the door."- Egon's voice came out metallic from the portable device- "We'll get ready and come take position in the alley. Over."

Peter put the walkie talkie back into his pocket. Soon enough he saw Janine walk into the cafè, her femme fatale attitude in high gear. Hoping they were doing the right thing, he tried to focus.

On his part, Egon was about sure he shouldn't have let the meeting happen. He left his observation spot nearby a window on the second floor and joined Winston in the lab - "Ready?"

"I'm not sure about this wave modifier, but I am ready yeah."- Winston said as he practiced operating his modified rifle. Ray had installed and tuned the device he had built earlier on Winston's proton pack 'just in case'.

Him being a good shooter and usually able to keep his cool automatically had elected him to be the proud user of their last resort weapon.

"Do you have doubts about how to activate it?"- the physicist asked, wearing his own pack and checking the battery level of his meter.

"No, it's pretty easy to turn on. I know this is just a precaution, but I don't ever want to use it."

Egon could only agree with him- "We will do our best to make things go smoothly."

Absent-mindedly, he opened his locked drawer to look for a particular screwdriver to fix a lightly loosened screw on the meter.

"You gonna take the feather with you?"- the other man asked- "It could be a good idea."

Screw fixed, the blond took the velvet case in his hands. Simply holding the case made him feel the typical wave of peace he'd feel when touching the feather directly. Something had changed. Was it because of the end of the lunar month approaching?

Egon nodded- "I think I just might do that. I can fit it in the pouch on my belt."

He removed the feather from its case and accomodated it into a plastic bag before transferring it into the belt. Something told him it'd be a good idea to have that thing near.

And so off they went, driving Winston's anonymous looking car to the spot in the alley siding the cafè they had planned to occupy to get good readings of Janine.

* * *

"It's almost funny to see how suddenly things can change."- Janine looked deeply into the man's eyes, her fingers playing with his- "Is your life going as you had planned it to?"

"Well, I have gone to a good college, I now have a good job... a nice house. Good friends."- he answered to her unexpected question- "I suppose you could say that."

"So 'good' and 'nice' are enough for you."- she replied, stopping her hand.

From her reaction he knew he had to raise the bet- "Offcourse not. I aim to the top, but it's a long way. Let's say that I'm still climbing."

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if there'd be a shortcut."- she purred, her fingers again entwining with his.

"It would, but there is none."- Marcus couldn't look away from her. It was as if her eyes were drawing him nearer and nearer- "What about you?"

"I have seen the top. But we seem to have one common enemy that made both of us postpone our success."- to his surprised reaction she continued talking- "Yes, I've been knowing all along about the... uhm... little accident between you and my bosses. What other wonderful way to make them pay than to accept their enemy's attentions?"

He couldn't stop being surprised by that beautiful creature- "I like the fact that we are on the same page."

She leaned her torso over the table, her breasts barely contained by her clothes.

"I know a perfect way to get back at them."- she whispered.

He swallowed a huge amount of saliva, feeling heat rise- "My place?"

"I have a better idea."- Janine sat back and finished the last bit of her dessert with a pleased smile as the windows of the cafè shattered.

* * *

Peter and Ray had decided to relocate behind a truck parked next to their phone booth.

Which was less cramped but much colder.

"I'm freezing."- Ray moaned, trying hard not to sneeze.

Peter adjusted the scarf around his friend's neck- "You better not get sick again. Go to the car and trade places with either Egon or Winston."

"Ray. Ray you hear me?"

It was Winston's voice coming out of Ray's pocket.

After a few moments of surprise, the occultist dug the walkie talkie out and replied- "I hear you nice and clear. Over."

"PKE levels are rising. Standby."

The two men raised their heads to look from the device to the alley in front of them. Their colleagues were standing right out of the car, Egon seemed very busy looking at his meter.

"Bullshit, we're not picking any-"

Peter couldn't even finish the sentence before their own meters started beeping. At first very softly, but then, in the span of a few moments, they reacted at full power.

Barely having the time to turn their packs on, they witnessed the windows of the cafè explode, glass shattering on the sidewalk.

They weren't as nasty as those summoned by the original Makeoveris, but those two dogs were losing no time breaking havoc.

The few customers and the staff of the cafè fleeing the scene at once were barely registered by the minds of the four men that had quickly regrouped in front of it.

"Janine's gone."- Peter stated the obvious. They hadn't seen her run out. And she knew the places where they would have been controlling the area, so, had she wanted to find them, she'd already be by their side.- "These dogs are no biggie, but it could take a while to take 'em down."

"We don't have time to spare. You come with me."- Egon's reaction as he took hold of Winston's arm and pulled him back towards the car left his colleagues disoriented.

"I come with you were?"- Winston protested, putting up resistence.

Egon's reply was short and scary- "To where it all started. The entity's going to end the cycle."

Realization made Ray's back go stiff- "Egon's right. You go ahead guys. We'll wrap this up and meet you there."

They parted, all of them feeling an unpleasant dejavu sensation.

* * *

"That was fun."- Janine laughed, comfortably seated in the back seat of a taxi.

"F-fun?"-Marcus echoed. It had all happened so fast that his heart was still beating at maximum speed. The windows exploding, those demonic looking creatures popping out of nowhere.

He'd probably still be sitting there, paralyzed by fear if Janine hadn't dragged him out by the backdoor, making him run all through the small kitchen of the cafè.

"Yeah. I'm kinda used to that. It gets fun after a while."- she simply replied.

"So where are you going?"- the driver asked. That weird couple had bursted into his taxi and ordered him to drive, but hadn't told him no address. He wanted to get 'em off his car as fast as possible, they smelled like trouble.

Janine gave him an address Marcus didn't have idea where it could be. It sounded like somewhere near the docks.

"Where are we going?"- he asked when the woman sat back beside him.

"To a special place."- she passed her arms around his and leaned against him- "Let's not let those stupid ghosts ruin our special night. Those should keep my bosses busy for a good while."

"Keep them busy..? So they were spying on us?"- Marcus' heart kept raging, not just because of the good fright he had just had. Her breasts were pressed against his arm and her legs so close to his.

She was being the sweetest torture he had ever had to endure. And he loved it.

"Yeah.. But we're winning this round."- she stated, relaxing against him.

He passed an arm around her, feeling a deep sense of victory.

* * *

"So what the hell is going on?"- Winston drove as fast as he could without risking to get stopped by some random cops.

"I honestly would have never imagined the entity could be strong enough to completely override her. There must be something that had refueled its power."- Egon kept tormenting himself about not stopping Janine when he could have had.

"She did act weird after she talked to Delacroix on the phone."- Winston raised his voice to overtop the rumble of the engine gaining speed - "Maybe it's not ending the cycle, it's starting a new one."

"Delacroix is in grave danger."- the physicist's voice didn't match the content of his sentence. He couldn't worry about him too at the moment- "And it's likely she'll die if the transfer takes place. Either by shock or by drowning."

All of the fibers in his body were screaming that he could have avoided that situation by not suggesting to let her be the one to contact the guy or by playing the jealousy card and cancel the encounter. He could never forgive himself for making such a terrible mistake. Never in a million years.

"Calm down, man."- Winston took one hand off the wheel to squeeze Egon's knee- "I need you to be focused. We can still win this."

The little physical contact helped the physicist find his way back to somewhat straight thinking. He could just nod.

"What's our strategy?"- both his hands back on the steering wheel, the older man was determined to keep his friend's mind occupied with useful thoughts.

"If we can make it in time, we'll need to seize her first thing and try to make her regain control over herself."- Egon fought to set aside emotions and do some planning- "If it's too late, or if she's started transforming then our top priority is to keep Delacroix safe and we'll have no other choice than to forcedly extract the entity from her."

"We will make it in time."

Winston set his whole heart and soul on the vital task he had and speeded up.

* * *

Being in such a bad area of the city at such time of the evening with the only company of a lady made Doctor Delacroix very nervous. They had been indeed left in front of a long row of badly illuminated commercial docks.

"Isn't this place romantic?"- Janine asked, still securely attached to his arm as they strolled real close to the water.

He wasn't really agreeing, but he played along- "Anywhere's fine if it's with you, my dear."

She laughed - "So you do know how to please a lady. I had my doubts after our date."

"I... I'm deeply sorry about that. I had a few too many to drink, and I feel so attracted to you.."

"It's ok. We are more similar than I could imagine."- she criptically said, letting silence fall over them for several minutes.

"We're both passionate and striving for perfection. But maybe you need some help with that."

"How do you mean?"- he asked, puzzled. What was she getting at?

"I'm your passport to the very best that this city has to offer."- she stopped and turned to look at him: he was as tall as her and, not wearing any high heels, she didn't have to crank her neck to do so.

"_A man taller than me..."_

That thought made her close her eyes, feel dizzy. The pain that had never left her since she had entered the cafè resumed feeling unbearable. She opened her eyes and got aware of the fact that she was somewhere really dark and alone with none other than Delacroix himself. What had happened?

"Why are we here?"- he asked, his hands on her hips. He looked lost.

She was about to admit she didn't have a clue herself when her mouth refused to open.

Struggling inside her with a newfound energy, her guest was fighting for its survival. Numbness she didn't have the strenght to fight flooded her mind once again.

"Give in to me and let me show you the way."

It was her voice, but she couldn't feel her mouth move. Her hands moved on their own to cup the man's face and gently stirred his lips closer to hers as two spots on her lower back throbbed in pain.

She realized something was growing out of her back and that Marcus was the designed prey of her dangerous guest. And she'd been knowing all along that without that parasite she was as good as dead.

Their lips touched, the pain intensified making her see distorted blots of light dance around her as the entity took over her body.

"_I'm sorry, Egon. I'm so sorry..."_

It was her last thought before pain caused her coscience to shut down.


	8. Chapter 7

"Step aside you two!"- Winston flashed his light on the couple kissing on the docks.

Taken aback Marcus obeyed, shielding his eyes from the bright light.

"Winston."- Egon quietly commented from behind him- "Turn on the device."

The physicist's words made the man take a better look at the two persons looking at them only sixty feet away. Small batlike wings had sprouted out of Janine's lower back, and she looked too collected. It wasn't her anymore. On the other hand, Delacroix still was looking and acting normal. Reluctantly, Winston activated the modulator installed on his rifle.

"Delacroix! Stay away, that's not Janine!"- Egon shouted, turning on his proton pack- "Come here quickly!"

"Don't listen to them, Marcus. They're just messing with you."- Janine calmly said, loud enough for everyone to hear her, wings magically disappearing and her hands still tightly grasping the man's shoulders- "They only want to ruin our fun."

"She's possessed!"- Egon didn't let the demon speak further- "Come here, now!"

"H-how do I know you're telling the truth, Spengler?"- Marcus hesitated. The sudden appearance of monsters in the cafè, her weird choice of location for a romantic night together made him almost obey. But those guys were his enemies. It could be just an elaborated plan to sabotage him once and for all.

Egon almost facepalmed, but preferred to mark his point by raising his activated rifle- "Do I fucking look like I'm kidding?!"

That man sure could drag the worst out of him at all given times.

"He's a liar"- the entity hissed through Janine's lips, pulling Marcus closer.

A stream hit the ground next to her, cracking up a small hole in the pavement.

"Shit!"- Marcus screamed, pulling her closer- "Are you out of your mind?!"

"Keep your cool."- Winston whispered, keeping Janine on aim.

"Sorry." - Egon whispered back. He had only managed to send Marcus straight into her arms. Way to go.

No one daring to move, the situation had reached a critical stall. It wasn't a problem for the Makeoveris. As long as Marcus was there, she could have all the energy she needed.

And it didn't look like Marcus was anywhere ready to pick a side.

* * *

"For fuck's sake, Ray!"- Peter held on to all he could hold on to - "You're gonna get us killed!"

"We don't have time for that!"- Ray had been barely avoiding other vehicles by mere inches since when they had trapped those two nuisances at the cafè and put their asses on Ecto's seats- "This is bad, very bad!"

"H...how bad?"- Peter yelled those words not to let himself scream randomly because of the pure terror that Ray's driving style was causing him to feel.

"She only had one reason to take him with her."- Ray yelled back, excited from the drive and the siren and the flashing lights- "The parasite is not gonna end the cycle as Egon said, it's going to start a new one, using Marcus as the new host. And if it happens..."

"And if it happens we're all fucked and Janine's dead. I get it."- nausea was sure starting to kick in and Peter had no intentions to give up his dinner- "W...we're just ten minutes late, can you slow down a bit...? Please?"

"Ten minutes are too much."- Ray clenched his hands around the steering wheel and pushed the engine to its limit.

Seven scary minutes later they safely reached their destination. They had been wise enough to turn off the siren and the lights as soon as they had endered the less trafficked commercial area. Following the PKE readings, they quickly found Winston's car.

They heard the loud fizzle of a full powered stream hitting something hard. Maybe the ground or a wall. Then Delacroix's voice shouting. Then silence. Muting their meters, they decided to sneak up on them. Maybe they were still in time to offer their friends some backup.

* * *

"Oh look. More company."- the demon snickered from her secure spot in the undecided man's arms- "Voyeurs."

Marcus saw two more men appearing, two more of those potentially deadly rifles aimed straight at him.

He saw the four of them exchange some brief conversation he couldn't hear.

He started to think that maybe he wasn't being played a prank on. He never in a million years would have trusted those guys, but the unusually nervous behaviour of the otherwise uber-cool and uber-collected physicist had disturbed him deeply.

"Marcus!"- it was Ray this time calling his name- "Marcus, I swear to God this is not a joke!"

"We... we should cut it here."- Marcus whispered, taking a small step aside from the woman- "This is getting too dangerous."

"There is no 'we' my dear." - the demon's lips curled up in a bloodcurdling smile as nails plunged into his shoulders.

The man couldn't gather up enough air in his lunghs to wail in pain, frozen by the sight of those once magnetic eyes turning completely to black and demonic wings emerge from behind her.

Having made mistake after mistake, Egon knew he had room for a couple more.

As in in a bad remake of that doomed night almost one month earlier, he took off his pack and took a step towards the demon and its victim.

"He doesn't have anything to do with this. Let him go and use my body instead."

Egon's hazardous decision made an incredibly huge lightbulb light up in Peter's head.

Being too directly involved had caused the guy to take a serie of really bad decisions from the very start of that awful journey. Which could turn to their advantage.

"Egon."- he breathed- "Piss her off."

The physicist twisted his arm behind his back and gave him a thumb up before walking closer to the couple, covering about half of the distance between himself and them.

Peter's idea made sense.

"Did you not hear me? I said let him go and use me. I'm as good as him."

The newborn Makeoveris threw her head backwards to take a good laugh at him.

Legs liquefying into a long serpentine tail, the creature left Marcus and approached him.

"Don't move."- she whispered to the petrified chemist, tightly wrapping his legs in her long tail as she moved forward.

The splashing of water against the docks filled the silence as the Makeoveris came face to face with Egon.

"I have no use for you."- she stated, tracing the contour of his jaw with one finger.

He didn't move - "It's because of me that you even exist. Show some gratitude."

"Gratitude?"- her voice softened as she studied his face- "I could have used you when you decided to have some fun with my pretty host last night. But I didn't. So we're even."

"Don't make up excuses. We know you couldn't have performed the transfer even if you had wanted to."- he kept his voice stern. He had to play his last cards perfectly.

Her eyes twinkled - "Are you doubting my power?"

"I'm still in one piece and it took my colleagues only a few minutes to trap your minions."- he provoked her- "Your transformation hasn't completed and you're stuck in a powerless human body you have barely managed to superficially change. I could kill your host right now and put an end to your ridicoulous existance."

As Egon magneted the attention of the demon, some silent planning had been going on a few feet behind him. Peter and Ray ready to cover him, Winston was slowly detaching himself from the group to have a clear shot at the tail. Hopefully the modified low powered stream wouldn't hurt Marcus and would allow him to run for it.

"That's what's so bad about you."- she pouted, taking her finger off his face and crossing her arms- "You're too proud. Too strong. Unlike my other friend back there. Or unlike your silly secretary."

Egon felt a weird warm sensation radiating from his lower abdomen. He remembered about the feather he had hastily tucked into his belt. Why was it reacting? Was it trying to tell him something?

He cursed his poor empathy skills and stuck to the plan- "That'd apply if you had to force me. But I'm allowing you. Where's the problem?"

The Makeoveris was about to answer when pain hit her. One short precise stream had stricken her snake tail, causing it to twich massively, sending her flying up and falling back down on her butt – real close to the edge of the docks, several feet away from the still petrified Marcus, who had fallen on his knees and curled up in a ball.

"The idiot's not going to move."- Peter muttered and ran, trying to get to the man before the demon could. He hastily grabbed Delacroix by his shoulders and pulled upwards to make him stand.

Screeching in pain and deprived of her emergency source of energy, she threw herself at the two of them.

* * *

It all happened really fast. Out of instinct, Egon had shielded his face with one arm and the precious content of his belt with the other. He let his fingers slide into the pouch, to check that the thick syntetic material had effectively protected the feather.

As his fingertip brushed the feather's barbs, a voice he knew well screamed into his mind.

"_Do it! Do it, do it! Now!"_

Confused, he looked up to see the demon about to launch herself on Peter and Marcus.

Letting the feather tell him what to do he extracted it, holding it as a knife as he sprinted.

The apparently fragile calamus effortlessly pierced Janine's body's chest as if it was made of butter.

Confused screams and blood on his hands and sleeves soon faded off as Egon plunged deep into the cold waters together with the Makeoveris.

* * *

"_E__GON__!_"- Peter let Delacroix go at once with all the intentions to dive.

"Venkman, don't!" - Marcus tackled him, securing him to the ground.

Peter was about to insult him, but he never got to do it. He noticed what Marcus had noticed earlier than him: it looked like the water was boiling- "W...what the hell...?"

"Something's coming up!"- Winston yelled, turning off the device and restoring the normal power of his pack- "Let's blast it, whatever it is!"

The three Ghostbusters regrouped, forming a line in front of the spot where the meters were signaling that something was about to happen.

"Explain me in ten words or less how to use this thing. I want to get that demon before it gets me."

Marcus had put on Egon's pack and was standing next to Peter at the end of the line.

He had the most determined look on his face.

"Push the button, don't cross streams, don't blast us or yourself."- Peter replied, turning on the pack for him. Pleasantly surprised of the fact that he was spontaneously helping them, he offered his hand to him- "Truce?"

"Truce."- Marcus shook his enemy's hand. They could set aside their problems for long enough to catch that thing. And possibly to fish out Egon before he got hurt. And maybe... were they still in time to save Janine too?

He couldn't continue his inner monologue.

A huge splash preceded the appearence of a small winged green snake. It could perhaps be the same size as a big dog. Which would be huge for an ordinary non-tropical snake. But quite a ridicolous one for a demon that was causing so much trouble.

"So this is what a young Makeoveris looks like."- Ray said - "Looks better than a baby Alien at least."

"Reminds me why I don't like kids."- the chemist grasped the rifle really tight. Blood had stopped coming out of the pierce wounds on his shoulders, but he still felt too shaky. Paranormal was definitely not his favourite field.- "Guide me, gents. I'll do my best to save them."

"Stick to me and you'll be fine."- Peter put on his standard grin and looked as sure of himself as always. Inside he was dying. The only place he'd want to be was in the water, making sure no one had drowned.

* * *

The feather glowed of a pure white light, adorned by small droplets of blood that kept escaping the wounded flesh and danced in the water like bubbles of air. An eerie smokelike substance twirled all around the feather and up to surface.

Sinking fast, Egon held on as tight as he could to Janine's waist. Her face pale, she still was blonde and tall and curvy. And unmoving. Air was an urgent need. Following the direction of whatever had been purged off from the woman's chest, he pushed with his legs.

Emerging made him draw deep, long breaths. His lunghs hurt.

His ears able again to hear told him that a heated battle was going on the dock. What were they shooting at? Had the demon abandoned Janine's body? Then why hadn't she changed back?

Shielded by the sturdy cement structure, he kept Janine's head above the water as he swam to find a spot to get back up on the docks level, possibly not close to the same spot as the one he had dived from.

The feather was still jabbed halfway into her chest, still pulsating light. Still radiating hope.

* * *

Not costrained by a mortal body, even if not as powerful as it would be if the transformation had happened, that Makeoveris Lotsabucks was revealing to be a true pain in the ass.

It was fast, and the bolts of energy it could release could nicely char a dumpster, as the poor dumpster that was hit could testify. So it was safe to assume that the entity could kill a person too.

"Careful, Delacroix. We wouldn't want you to get grilled."- Peter joked as he pulled the improvised Ghostbuster out of the way before he could get hit by one of those dangerous bolts.

Marcus tried not to lose his balance, then resumed firing - "This sucks. It plain damn sucks."

"Yeah, lots of stuff wasn't in the job description."- Winston commented as he run past them to try and have another shot - "But it kinda grows on you after a while."

"I'm gonna go home and get drunk as soon as this is done."- Marcus muttered, his voice overrided by Ray's yelling.

"I GOT IT!"- the occultist exulted a tad too early. Quickly evading from the stream, the demon resumed flying in circles over them, evidently determined to eliminate his enemies.

"Let's split up."- Winston gasped, recovering from the running - "We'll have a better chance."

Each of them occupied one corner of the rectangular area and then moved along its edges, trying to anticipate the demon's position.

Marcus had a hard time paying attention both to the entity and to the men's positions. His top priority was not to become a delicious human steak. By luck his stream caught the demon, but his lack of experience made him fail to hold it captive. He cursed.

"Good shot! Next time try to drag it down!"- Ray gave him a thumb up, encouraging him to retry.

Marcus tried again, dragging the demon down of a couple of feet – enough for Peter to back him up.

It escaped. Marcus couldn't remember a single time in his life when his frustration levels had ever risen so much so quickly.

Something caught Winston's attention. For a moment he thought he had seen another ghost, but he realized it was just Egon's head timidly poking out from around the corner. As to be expected the guy was drenched, but he looked fine. And had apparently found a good hiding spot behind the warehouse. Before the demon could notice anything, Winston moved his arm to shoo his hiding friend. Even without his glasses, Egon seemed to have seen his gesture of acknowledgment and retreated.

Winston used his walkie talkie to inform the others without having to abandon his position: relief instantly made his colleague relax.

They still were fighting against time – they couldn't just go and check on Egon and Janine just yet, it would only have led the demon straight back at her- but knowing that no one was risking to drown eased their minds, with positive effects on their focusing skills.

Two more times they got close to catching it, and two more times they failed.

"Why ain't this working!"- Peter felt exhausted- "Ray!"

"I don't know!"- Ray slumped against a wall - "Maybe we don't have enough firing power!"

Peter took cover behind the surviving dumpster of the two present in the area- "We took down the mother of this thing with these streams, that's impossible!"

Delacroix found himself crouching next to a pile of pallets, close to Winston - "Hey man, why's your pack different?"

"Long story."- Winston cut it short, but that gave him an idea. He turned on his walkie talkie again - "Hey Ray."

Ray's voice replied with a 'what?' as the demon broke a hell of energy blasts loose.

"What if I turn on the modulator?"

"Do it, we'll cover you." - Ray seemed to like the idea.

"Alright buddy. I'm going out."- Winston let Marcus have his portable radio - "Get ready for action."

Marcus tucked the rectangular piece of plastic into the pocket of his ruined jacket and gritted his teeth.

Winston's apparently innocuous low powered finely tuned stream hit with precision the target.

Paralyzed by that special taylored blast, the snake could only writhe in apparent pain.

One by one three other streams joined in and everyone made sure Marcus wouldn't mess up by doing some ameteurish mistake. Soon they all were standing relatively closer to each other, aiming to have a clear spot to throw the traps.

A couple of traps out, the demon was on its way to capivity when something strange happened.

Winston's special stream wasn't really holding the Makeoveris, it had attached to something _else_.

Ray noticed it. That was sure something he hadn't ever see happen yet. Something that had embedded into the entity was being dragged out. He wanted to know what it was. It could make the difference between having Janine back alive or dead.

"Winston, shorten the stream!"- he ordered, yelling over the noise of their weapons.

The other man obeyed, salvaging something from the bright light of the traps.

With one last long wail, the unlucky Makeoveris found itself prisoned in two separate traps and silence fell over the commercial docks.

Everyone stopped firing as a long, translucent glass-like feather gracefully glided down for an eternal handful of seconds, landing at Peter's feet.

* * *

Breathing hard and shivering in cold, Egon was kneeling beside Janine's unconscious body. He had carefully laid her supine on the ground. Her breathing was slow and shallow. Normally he'd be already running around to find something to warm her up, but he didn't want to disturb the feather. He had tried to touch it to remove it, but it had strongly rejected his touch, almost burned his hand.

He could only wait for the Makeoveris to be neutralized. Being as discreet as possible, he poked his head from around the corner of the warehouse to quietly signal his presence to the others.

Winston acknowledged him silenlty, gesturing him to go back hiding.

Egon walked back and kneeled again on Janine's side, keeping her hand on his thighs – his index and middle fingers pressed over the vein in her wrist to make sure her heart was still pumping.

The cold that was getting to his bones made his hands tremble. It wasn't making the task easy, but he knew it wouldn't be long before the Makeoveris would be caught. He had to endure.

Then it happened. The unmistakable sound of traps opening, the yelling of his colleagues barking orders to each other rising in volume. It sounded like Delacroix was especially enjoying the bust, he was screaming louder than the others, mostly profanities.

As if melting, the feather collapsed on itself, fusing with the woman's skin. The moment of truth had arrived at last. From head to toe, as if hit by a wave, she quickly changed. First the hair, then the colour of her skin. Her nose, the shape of her face. The size of her breasts, the shape of her hips. Her bones shrunk and became thinner, her wet clothes now a good two sizes too wide.

Feeling her hand become smaller as he held it was one of the weirdest sensation he had ever felt in his whole life. Footsteps approaching, Egon waited for her to do anything.

Janine's lunghs filled with air one last time, then she stopped breathing.

"No, no, no. No, please don't do this to me."- he uttered, checking her neck for a pulse. The heart was barely beating. - "Don't do this to me, please."

Closing her nose, he blew in her mouth all the air his own tired lunghs would allow him to. He did it again and again, until he felt dizzy and boots and legs appeared in front of him.

* * *

Silence replaced the usual outburst of satisfaction that would normally take place after trapping such a dangerous demon.

Peter turned off his pack, opened the zip of his jumpsuit to tuck the new feather between his t-shirt and the jumpsuit itself. It was the safest place he could think of at the moment, being the feather so long and delicate - "Someone go grab a couple blankets from the car and call 911."

Without waiting for an answer, he ran to where he knew Egon was.

He found him drenched and shaking, bent over the unmoving body of the redhead they all had worked so hard to see again, franctically trying to reanimate her.

Peter got rid of the heavy pack on his shoulders and threw himself on the ground right next to her, in front of him.

"Egon..."- he grabbed the blond's shoulders to make him stop- "...Egon, look at me."- Their eyes met: tears were mixing with the drops of salty water dripping down from the blond's hair and down his face- "It's gonna be alright."

Egon shook his head, his mouth deforming as the presence of his friend let him finally give up to desperation and hypothermia- "She was right..."

"She wasn't."- Peter presented him the feather he had transported inside his jumpsuit. It immediately started to glow faintly- "We made it."

The physicist found the inner strenght to collect himself. Knowing he couldn't have handled such a precious item with his unstable hands, he simply tore Janine's shirt, exposing her chest and abdomen.

As if in the middle of a risky heart transplant – and himself being the cardiac surgeon- Peter placed with utter care the feather on Janine's torso.

It melted into her right away, making her lunghs abruptly expand again and her eyes open to see the dark, cloudy sky.

Coughing, she sat up, hungry for air.

"Easy, girl, easy. Breathe slowly."- Peter couldn't hold back a laughter as he massaged her back- "There. Nice and slow."

She focused on breathing for two or three painful minutes. Then she remembered about the stuff growing on her back. She touched her lower back, it was smooth.

"Your back is fine."- Egon stated as he sat down on the ground and used a safety pin that had been sitting for a while in the pocket of his jumpsuit to mend the tear on her shirt. The little task helped ease his mind, pushing him a little bit away from the nervous breakdown he had risked to have.

"Thanks."- she said, noticing how her boobs weren't sticking out anymore. She took the chance and sat between his legs, resting against him.

"Are you cold?" - Egon asked, holding her. He had a very long queue of things to say to her. Much more important things. Mostly sentimental stuff. And none of those things were willing to come out.

She answered honestly, feeling him shiver- "My ass is freezing. But it feels like mine is not the only one."

"Then I'm right on time." - Winston crouched by them with three folded blankets in his arms.

It had taken him a while to go back after digging up some blankets from both cars, mostly because of Marcus refusing to leave the car, with the excuse that he would have waited for the ambulances to arrive. As much as Ray would have wanted to go greet Janine, he had reluctantly decided to stick to him, secretly confessing to Winston that 'Marcus seems a bit upset'.

On his part, Winston was convinced that Marcus was more than 'a bit upset' and that he'd have needed a couple litres of vodka to erase that night's scars from his delicate mind.


	9. Chapter 8

"I see bromance is high tonight."- Marcus commented, blowing on his cup of coffee.

The trip to the hospital had resulted in Egon and Janine both being treated for a mild case of hypothermia and had made him gain a couple good shots of Valium. Music to his nerves.

Six hours later and a couple of signatures on discharge papers, everyone was free to leave.

It was almost 5 a.m. and they all were sitting in Janine's perfectly cleaned and ordered living room.

She had proposed to have breakfast at her place, but had disappeared into her bedroom almost immediately after giving permission to the men to do whatever they wanted.

The five minutes needed to brew some coffee revealed to be too many for Egon, who had fallen asleep with his head on Peter's shoulder. The new couch being really comfortable had its share of guilt too.

"You jealous?"- Peter asked, trying to balance the weight of the sleeping phyicist as he brought his mug to his lips.

Marcus couldn't believe he was in the same room as them, and was even joking with the man he had sworn to hate forever - "I like blondes, but I'll leave this particular one to your attentions. Not enough boobs and has stuff in the crotch area that I don't fancy."

Water running in the old pipes clearly signaled that their host was taking a shower. Which made the three awake Ghostbusters stiffen their backs.

"We sure the damn thing is gone-gone?"- Winston was still feeling a little jumpy. It had been a long bad nightmare.

"It should."- Ray answered, opening another packet of paper tissues to tame his running nose- "I hope so, at least."

"Are you guys for real?"- Delacroix could clearly see that the whole story about Janine's apartment building being completely wrecked was a good told lie. But, also if he didn't know why everyone had to be so nervous about a lady taking a shower, he would have preferred to hear a much more comforting answer coming from Ray.

"Hey relax, I did get you out of there alive." - Peter replied, wishing for something to eat. His stomach was growling. Loudly.

"Keep it down, I can't sleep."- Egon muttered, rubbing his eyes. His glasses had gone lost in the water and the lack of the usual red rims on his face made the dark shades unde his eyes even more noticeable. He had slept some hours at the hospital, but he did have a lot of sleep to catch up on.

Peter groaned. Being a human bed wasn't as fun as sleeping on one -"Give me food and it will stop disturbing your beauty sleep."

"You really want me to cook without my glasses on and after I've been drugged?" - Egon sat up and stirred, then he squinted more than he would have normally done to focus on the cup that had been waiting for him on the coffee table before reaching out to pick it up.

Peter couldn't tell if he was doing that on purpose or not, but he didn't feel like risking it.

"Maybe you'll find some food in the jungle."- Winston snickered, remembering Janine's comment about the monsters allegedly living in her forest of flowers.

The psychologist stuck out his tongue at him, starting to feel like he probably had to lift his ass from the couch and go cook something himself.

"Since you did save my life, as you didn't fail to remind us all a couple minutes ago, I'll be kind and put together some breakfast."- Marcus stood up. He liked to cook and was good at it; it was one of his best and fastest ways to get to the ladies. And he felt he had to do something to thank the guy. He had kept his word and watched over him all through the final battle against the stupid snake-bat thingie.

"Rat poison's right below the sink."- Egon smirked, cocking one eyebrow.

Peter didn't feel enthusiastic anymore about the chemist fixing his breakfast -"Don't give him ideas, please."

Everyone but him gave it a good laugh, and they moved to the kitchen.

* * *

Janine knew it wasn't polite to abandon her guests like that after she had been the one insisting on going at her place, but she needed a quick shower and a change of clothes. Luckily she still had her old clothes, stored in some boxes under the bed.

She was feeling physically alright. At the hospital they had warmed her up nicely, ran analysis on her and made sure she was human again. She had been taken to a different ward as Egon, but the guys had been so kind to split up and keep her informed as they took turns to watch over her.

Egon had happened to be in a rougher shape than hers. Him borderlining underweight and having undergone some severe emotional distress had made his treatment longer.

That Delacroix had revealed to be very useful. Once he had calmed down he had started to bark orders at the doctors, speeding things up dramatically. She couldn't imagine that working in the pharmaceuticals could be so useful. Or maybe he just knew half of the staff. Or maybe his dad had been donating to that hospital too. That latter options could have explained a lot of things, but she didn't feel like making such mischievous thoughts as yet.

Either way, she was glad to be home. Maybe less glad to be in her old self.

Naked in front of the mirror she had just rubbed with a towel to be able to see herself, she could see again all the problems that had made her fall straight into the Fairy Godmother's hands.

Pushing up her breasts with her hands didn't make them look anywhere as big as she would have liked them to be. And her thighs were a little bit too thick compared to the lower part of her legs.

Oh, her face. Lips were okay, but the general shape of her face looked a bit too sharp and pointy.

Her eyesight had reverted to her physiological one, forcing her to put her glasses back on.

It had been so long since the transformation had started that she couldn't recognize the person in the mirror anymore.

"Hello."- she greeted herself, and her voice came out different, her accent as strong as it could ever be. The woman in the mirror started to cry, and Janine was glad her reflection couldn't feel the weight of insecurity crushing her. - "Don't cry. It's gonna be alright."

The reflection smiled between tears, and faded as the steam clouded the mirror again.

She opened the small window to let the bathroom cool down and moved to the bedroom to get dressed. She extracted the sealed boxes from under her bed and picked a simple outfit.

Not feeling confident enough to wear one of her beloved short skirts, she picked a longuette and paired it with a shirt. Then she spent a couple of minutes deciding if to go for stockings or not.

The house was warm and she wasn't planning to go out, but she was so not comfortable with herself. Her choice fell on a pair of opaque black stockings. She didn't want to see her legs.

Janine slid the boxes back under the bed and put on some underwear. The moment she sat on her bed, the damned old mattress she had been blaming for her back pains squeaked lightly, which sent her on a whole other level of worrying.

She thought about the sheets still sitting in her dryer, leading her to recall why those sheets had been washed first place. Egon had clearly told her that he liked her old looks. Now that she looked again like herself, would have he stuck to his words?

Making love to him had looked like a good idea at first. Now it felt like an ingredient for disaster.

It was like giving the guy a succulent plate of the finest lobster and then taking him to McDonalds.

Her stomach growled at the thought of lobsters and hamburgers.

Perfectly knowing that what's done is done and that it's useless to cry over spilled milk, she hurried up putting some make up on her face and combing her hair, then left the scary safety of her bedroom.

* * *

The smell of pancakes filled the kitchen. Marcus had given the best and was about to dish the most luscious looking portions of pancakes. There wasn't much to use, so he equally divided the amount of butter he had left and used chocolate syrup and some fruit as topping.

The more time he took to garnish the plates, the more it sounded like stomachs felt impatient.

A chorus of growling sounds between casual conversation made Marcus picture himself as a lone zookeper having to feed some really hungry monkeys. Monkeys that had gone to college.

He liked that mental imagery and smiled, deciding to take it slowly.

"So, gentlemen. Breakfast's ready."- He announced, turning around from the counters to serve his little masterpieces. He stopped in mid-movement as the woman that had deceived him appeared from the corridor. - "Hello there. Just in time."

He acted nonchalant, serving her the best looking set of pancake as she sat down. Then he distribuited the other dishes to the other men and kept one for himself.

There she was, in her simple outfit. Not a golden haired goddess anymore.

Strangely enough, he didn't feel resentment towards her. The words she (or maybe it was the demon talking already) had told him about the two of them being similar had stuck into his head all night.

It was true. He had been depending on his family's influence for so long that he was having troubles making people see that it wasn't just because of his father's money that he had become a top dog in the medicinal field. He had been surrounding himself with the finest furniture and the finest people to draw a sense of worth from them, to forget his being so helplessly insecure about himself.

He was grateful to that small cute redhead. She might have saved his life, in a sense.

"These smell really good. Maybe I should have accepted that invite to dinner while I could."- she replied, sincerily smiling.

Marcus found that smile more beautiful than the goddess' fake one.

"Maybe the invite is still valid."- he casually slipped in after he had invited everyone to dig in.

Surprised to receive such a bold proposal from the man she had basically tried to kill, Janine felt her face flush under the make up and she had to look down at her plate to avoid a blushing disaster.

Peter didn't bother to finish chewing before he spoke - "No flirting before or during breakfast."

"Gross."- Janine had taken a good view of the contents of her boss' mouth.

"I'm glad I can't see."- Egon broke his silence. He had been silent not because of burning jealousy fits or any other particular reason. The task of cutting down the food in mini pieces and chewing with utter attention had simply absorbed him deeply.

"Oh, about that."- Janine dug up a pair of round red framed glasses from her pocket and handed 'em to him.

Egon simply accepted them and put them on - "Thanks."

"Confess. He pays you an extra to guard his spare pair for him."- Peter felt like provoking Janine a bit. Money was a good joking ground and he couldn't wait to see if she was really back for good.

"It's all an elaborated plan."- she replied in the most deadpan tone ever as she sectioned her juicy pancakes- "The less he breaks 'em, the less money he wastes and the more chances I have to get paid at the end of the month."

"I don't break them that often..." - Egon timidly put in, knowing he mostly would forget them. The fact that the forgetting rates went out the roof when he'd be in Janine's apartment -causing him to resort to his spare pair- only made it natural that she had higher chances to be the one to find them.

The exchange had caused smirks to appear on the other three men's faces, making Marcus suspect there was something funny he couldn't quite catch about the whole conversation.

"So guys, let's do this staight away so we can forget about this whole matter."- Janine changed subject abruptly- "What the hell happened tonight?"

"What do you remember exactly?"- Ray's facial expression switched to a serious one. Maybe he would have preferred to wait until after breakfast to talk about that particular topic, but if she had asked, then it meant she really needed to know.

"I... remember entering the cafè. Then... then I was eating cake."- Janine thoughtfully chewed as she remained silent for a bit - "And then... then a moment later I was somewhere cold and badly lit. The docks, I suppose. Then nothing else. First thing I remember after that is Peter telling me to breathe."

The men described her what had really happened. The first to talk was Marcus, telling her about their date at the cafè and the trip to the docks. Second was Winston, describing the events leading to the trapping of the Makeoveris. He omitted some details, especially the part where the physicist had stabbed her. He thought it could have upset her.

"We think that the first feather kept you alive during the time that the entity was out of your body." - Ray added when Winston was done talking- "It kept you in some kind of... of hybernation? Suspended animation?"

"Neither of the terms are correct, but they describe fairly well the function of the feather I had originally found."- Egon had given up on his pancakes. He had barely eaten half of his portion and his stomach already was suggesting him to stop. He donated his share to Peter, who gladly accepted it.- "You were right in a sense, Janine. If Ray hadn't noticed the second feather, you wouldn't have survived the parasite."

"I don't quite understand why there were feathers around in the first place, but how so? How's the second one different from the first?"- she asked, not approving the pancakes donation. She didn't show it, but she really needed to have a chat with the physicist about the importance of eating his food.

Egon's lips tightened in a line before he spoke again. He still felt greatly upset about all that had happened - "From what we know, parasites of the Makeoveris Lotsabucks' kind not only feed on negative emotions to develop, but draw their vital energy from the soul of their host before releasing it at the end of the cycle. When we disturbed the transformation, one month ago, something might have caused your soul to split. Which would explain why one feather would be enough to make you survive the extraction of the parasite, but not enough to keep you alive. It's just a theory, as we don't have any means to verify it, but it would explain why it couldn't feed properly on you and so why your transformation never really happened, if not superficially."

"And also it'd explain why you felt as if you had died. And it'd explain your sensation of being in two places at the same time when the original Makeoveris planted the parasite in you."- Ray nodded. Even if their theory was wrong it was a very small loss. Janine had survived, whatever had happened. - "Everything seems to fit."

"What about me then?"- Marcus dared to ask- "Was I some kind of... backup battery?"

"The bitch was planning to ditch me and grow in you."- Janine replied with ease to that question. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Not only she would have died, but she would have caused the death of another person.

"Bitch didn't know who she was messing with."- Peter rested his hand on top of her head. That red head he had been dying to see again.

"Now, because now I'm all short and stuff it doesn't mean you can pat me like a dog."

She pushed his hand off her head, he poked a very ticklish spot on her side before darting out of his chair. Janine shrieked and cursed, implicitly accepting to chase him as she left the table.

"That's normal. They're bonding."- Egon informed a somewhat perplexed Marcus.

Observing Janine picking up a pillow from the armchair and chasing the psychologist down the corridor to beat the crap out of him, the image of the perfect goddess started to fade in Delacroix's mind for good- "Yeah... Bonding..."

"It's heartwarming to see those two fit together again."- Winston said. It would have taken him some time to get used to Janine's original self, but it was an effort he was happy to make.

"...Fit in together..."- Marcus echoed as Peter emerged from the corridor and threw himself on the couch, letting her give him some pokes back- "I've seen cats fight with more grace than those two."

"Yeah, it's messy but we wouldn't want it any other way."- Ray smiled. Stuff was feeling alright again.

"I didn't really like what happened before getting out of the hospital, but breakfast's been fun. Let's do this again."- Marcus stood up, deciding it was time to leave them to their bonding rituals and to go catch some sleep. And maybe have that drink he had been craving for - "Before truce ends, possibly."

Noticing that the chemist had stood up, Peter sat up aswell, making Janine stop her attack and look in the same direction as him. They collected themselves and silently promised to settle the matter at a later time.

"Going home?"- Peter asked as everyone else stood up to accompany the man to the door.

"Yes, time to sleep some."- Delacroix walked to the entrance to put on his damaged jacket.

"Thank you for cooking."- Janine's heated face emerged from behind Peter - "And thanks for earlier."

She gave him a hug, then he shook hands with the men. With the promise of meeting up for dinner sometimes, Marcus stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. Then something in his mind clicked. He knocked on the door, someone opened it. No one had had the time to walk away.

"Forgot something?"- Janine asked, looking around behind her. She didn't remember if he had a scarf or gloves.

"In a sense, yes. Can I have a word with you?"- Marcus gestured Egon to follow him outside - "About that book. In private possibly."

Egon nodded, picked up the apartment keys from the glass plate on the small consolle under the coat hanger and followed him.

"I wonder if he wants to take revenge now."- Peter whispered once the door was closed.

"Nah, probably he couldn't translate the book. It was pretty hard to get."- Ray replied - "We're friends now, aren't we?"

Peter let the matter drop with a sigh and they decided to be good boys and clean the mess on the table.

* * *

"Very interesting tale." - Marcus commented upon hearing the contents of the fable Egon had copied from the book - "Things kind of make more sense now."

"I'll fax you the translation."- Egon offered. Delacroix's behaviour had surprised him greatly. He would have never expected him to put on a proton pack out of his own will and help them. It made him feel a tad guilty about the secret flirt he had had with his girlfriend, about ten years earlier. On the other hand he honestly hadn't know she still was his girlfriend until she herself had told him some days after their x-rated date together, in an outburst of guilt. So maybe he didn't have to feel bad about it.

"Thank you. Oh, and Spengler?"- Marcus remembered something else he had been wanting to know.

Egon hummed an inquisitive sound.

"What did the demon mean when she said that thing... well when she said that she could have got you when you had fun with her host?" - Marcus hoped there was some other occult meaning to that sentence, and not because he was planning to keep pursuing Janine; he would have certainly sent her some flowers every now and then, and invited her to dinner, but just as friends. She still felt like a keeper, just in a different way - "She didn't mean..."

"Let's say that her host was quite upset, but it didn't take long to make her forget her troubles, if you catch my drift." - Egon's very precise memory let him effortlessly quote the exact words the chemist had told him the previous afternoon. He did so with a little smirk on his face.

"Touchè."- Marcus smiled and put a cigarette between his lips. He shook Egon's hand again as he patted his back and strolled down the stairs, humming a song he had heard on the radio.

The physicist opened the door of the apartment with a smile still stuck on his face. He closed the door, let the keys rest again in the plate with a tingle.

"Still alive?"- Peter asked him. Then noticed the smile on the man's face. Egon had been the one dealing damage and he could tell. The wicked smile tainted the psychologist's face too.

"Yup."- Egon gave him a thumbs up and reset his facial expression. His short answer meant they would have talked about it later, in private.

Peter nodded, and he couldn't wait to know - "We're about done, why don't you go sit on the couch?"

Glancing in the kitchen, the blond could see how Delacroix had used a load of pans and bowls.

An efficient human chain formed by Ray, Winston and Janine was optimizing the time needed to wash and dry dishes, glasses, cutlery and everything else that had been used.

Peter had a broom in his hands. Always the lucky one.

"If it's okay with you..." - Egon started, hesitating.

"Rest some, we'll be finished in a few minutes."- Janine ordered him a tad too sternly.

Not to upset her, he nodded and obeyed.

* * *

"You should have spent the modeling money on a new dishwasher."- Peter lightly poked Janine's back with the broomstick. Ten minutes had passed and the washing had come to an halt because of a burned pan that didn't want to get cleaned.

"I don't relax on dishwashers."- she replied- "You know, if my job was less stressful, then..."

Winston laughed. Those two couldn't stop teasing each other - "You can't win this, Pete."

"I'll show you how it's done."- Peter set aside the broom and picked up the scrubber from the sink.

"It's all yours." - Janine gladly left him with the burned pan and sat down. Her knee hurt. Also her back hurt, but it was a normal pain. Just her muscles feeling tired.

The burned spot gave up to Peter's energic treatment. As well as the pan, that got badly scratched. Four persons bent over to take a look at the damage.

"...What can I say..." - Janine's heart cried at the sight of one of her newer, costier and prettier pan being so ruined. Even the flowery decoration on the outer side had been tortured to the point of coming off- "...you did scrub the muck off..."

"We'll get you a new one."- Ray offered upon seeing Janine's face.

"It's fine. I can still use it." - she smiled. It was just a pan- "It's just a couple scratches."

Ray's digital clock beeped seven times, announcing that it was 7 a.m. already.

"Maybe it's time to go." - Winston stirred. He hadn't been sleeping for ways too long and he was starting to feel his body ache.

They started to gather their scattered belongings. One scarf on the rest of a kitchen chair, a pair of boots near the entrance door. Almost forgot a meter on top of the fridge.

"Do I put a ribbon and some nice paper on him or you take him out as is?"- Janine asked, pointing her index finger at the man curled up on the couch, hugging a pillow, his feet hanging down not to dirty the leather with his boots. And evidently lost in deep sleep.

"You can keep him. I conceded you a week, right?" - Peter said opening the door- "Remember to drop by the office tomorrow if you want your check. Or the day after tomorrow. I'll probably sleep for twenty hours plus."

"A week of what?"- Ray asked, following him out of the door.

Janine watched them from the doorway. Wishing them a safe ride home, she then observed the men walk down the stairs, happily chatting. Everything felt back to normal, except herself.

Sighing, she closed the door and locked it.

Up to ten or fifteen hours before Janine would have kneeled beside the couch and sweetly kissed her man until he'd be conscious enough to help him reach the bed, then she would have gotten rid of his boots, have him lay comfortably and rest her head on his chest – letting his heartbeat soothe her into sleep.

At the moment she couldn't even dare to imagine to mentally address him as 'her man', and the mere thought of waking him up in that manner made her feel embarrassed.

She decided to simply ease him out of his boots and bend his legs so they were completely on the couch. Using a small blanket she kept in a drawer nearby, she covered him without disturbing his sleep.

* * *

"You really think Egon's gonna stay out of the lab for so long?"- Ray laughed as they walked down the stairs- "We still have to clean up and file the data. He loves to file stuff."

"Nope. But she can try."- Peter opened the apartment building's main door and kept it open for his colleagues to pass through it.

"She might succeed."- Winston searched his pockets for the keys to his own car- "Man's pretty beat. And she does cook better than we do. That could be a valid motive to ditch the firehouse for a bit."

Peter gave it a laugh, then went serious - "I'm worried."

"You think she's going to have problems?"- the occultist walked straight for the driver's side, but was grabbed by the shoulders and turned in a differently angled direction.

"I'm driving."- Peter glared at him. He wasn't letting him drive again anytime soon after his stunt on their way to the docks. - "And yeah. I'm not a fashion expert, but I know her enough to see that those clothes she picked and that ton of make up ain't good signs. She already is in distress."

"Egon's learned a lot these days. I'm sure he can handle her."- Winston reassured him. - "We'll call tonight to check things up."

One last look at Janine's apartment's closed windows and they split up.

* * *

When Egon woke up it was probably noon. He felt comfortably warm.

A blanket had appeared over him, and he couldn't remember taking his boots off. For a moment he thought he was back at the firehouse, but his hands felt the leather beneath him.

The guys had evidenly left him behind to let him sleep, and he was grateful for that. He stirred cautiously and sat up. Doctors had recommended him to eat small meals frequently and to be on time taking the antibiotic they had prescribed him. They had also given him a prescription for some anxiolitics, but he wasn't gonna take them.

Putting on his glasses, he realized he was one hour late on his antibiotic schedule. Without making noise, he paid a quick visit to the kitchen, ate a couple of cookies, then extracted a little plastic container from his pocket and popped down an antibiotic and a pill of paracetamol. He washed the glass he had just used.

Noises were coming from the bedroom. He wondered if Janine had woken up. Or if she had slept at all. She had looked relaxed and generally happy during breakfast, but something had felt off.

He knocked on the bedroom's door. It was just semi-closed, and he could take a glimpse of the huge mess going on in there. Clothes, shoes and accessories laid scattered everywhere.

Janine just opened the door to implicitly invite him in and went back sitting on the bed.

"Doing some... uhm... tidying up?" - Egon minded his steps not to unadvertedly step on her belongings.

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it."- she said - "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

Egon decided to let it drop for the moment- "Yes, if it's not a problem. Also I wondered if I could use your washing machine again."

She took the clothes he had used the night before and handed them to him with a smile. She had tried to keep her mind occupied by taking care of the laundry before taking the regrettable decision to fix her wardrobe - "Offcourse. You don't need to ask, you know."

He accepted the small bundle- "You look tired. Did you sleep some?"

"Uhm, no. I wanted to put my old clothes back in the wardrobe, but as you can see it's taking longer than expected." - she looked around, feeling defeated.

On the excitement wave of her new looks she had thrown out most of her old stuff, so it normally wouldn't have been a hard task to get the diva clothes out and put the plain jane ones in. But then she had got lost trying the clothes she was about to discard, which had caused her to go through a number of mini nervous meltdowns. One for each flaw she kept finding as she critically looked at herself. She thanked make up for making her appear just 'tired' to his eyes.

"I won't be long. I'll help you and then let's have something to eat."- Egon said, the question he had in mind coming out as a statement.

She just nodded.

* * *

Freshly out of the shower, Egon's mind was set to dry and do his hair as quickly as possible, so he could help fix the disaster going on in the bedroom.

Rubbing his head with a towel, he found himself standing in front of the mirror. Steam had clouded it, so he polished it with a dry towel. For the first time in weeks, he actually stopped and looked at himself. He indeed had lost weight, and it would take some time to put it back on in a healthy way.

He wasn't worried one bit about that matter.

The hot water had made his skin redden, making it possible to see old scars on his abdomen and arms that otherwise would blend in with his pale skin colour. He knew he had a long one on the back of his calf, so he turned to look at it before taking the hairdrier from a low cabinet and use it on his hair.

He didn't really have a problem with the scars. Some he had received from ordinary accidents: a fall from the bike or from a tree, some explosion in the lab. Some others were the consequence of busts going bad instead. He turned off the hairdrier and touched a deep one that was just above his left hipbone. Now _that_ had been a bad bust, and the first occasion in which he had seriously risked dying. A lot of time had passed.

He had just finished dressing up when he thought that Janine must have looked at herself in that mirror too. Egon decided he would have asked her about how she felt about herself. The question was how to do it without making her upset, sad or plainly pissed off. And so there he was, feeling anxious and remembering that he had to make up his mind about their relationship. Well, not really. He had already made up his mind, and had let her know on their last night together. But was anything they had done that night to be considered valid? What if she had changed idea?

Or what if she were to ask him anything as scary as those things Ray had suggested?

Stuff like moving in together. Going to the office hand in hand.

Exchange demonstrations of reciprocal affection in public.

He was glad he knew where the building's fire exits were.

That last thought made him feel ashamed of himself.

"I haven't learned a thing from this mess."- he said aloud to no one.

* * *

Janine laughed heartfeltdly at the sight of the guy trying to keep a straight face in the sea of sexy lingerie that had emerged from under the huge pile of costy clothes they had been folding and putting away in boxes. He couldn't picture her in many of those risquè pieces of clothing.

"How is it humanely possible to accumulate so many in less than a month?" - he asked, spreading in front of him the D cupped bra he had in his hands to observe it. It looked expensive. And the cups were so wide he could have probably used them as emergency hats. Kippah sized hats, but they could work.

"Girls like shopping."- she replied, snatching the costy bra from his hands and folding it with care. She had never used it so maybe she could still resell it.

"What's the utility of this?" - he dug out a granny style elastic bodice. It felt sturdy if he pulled.

"Girls with big boobs need support."- She took it out of his hands and threw it in a random box - "Egon, have you decided to get a PhD in female underwear anytime soon?"

"Sorry." - he sat down on the bed, giving up on the scavenging- "Didn't mean to be nosy."

"It's ok. It just feels weird to look at this stuff. It's like cleaning out someone else's stuff."- she noticed his eyes were a tad too shiny, and so he was caught offguard when she placed her opened palm on his forehead- "You need to eat and take your medicines. And rest."

He copied her- "You're hot. And if I remember correctly you were prescribed some medicines too."

She took the hand off his forehead to cover her mouth with it as a gasp escaped her mouth - "I forgot to take 'em."

"Let's temporarly move the underwear into some of those trash bags so it's not in the way and then we'll think about food and medicines."- he proposed.

She nodded, wanting those items out of her sight before she could regret surviving her parasite even more.

* * *

Microwaved meals are never the best for an healing body, but neither of them felt like cooking.

They diligently took their pills and moved to the living room with a cup of hot tea to wash the bitter taste off their mouths.

"It feels like ages ago, but it hasn't even passed two days since when I was here yelling how much I hated you."- Janine commenced, still lost in the process of undestanding the twirl of negativity going on inside her. She wished he acted more warmly, but he was just behaving friendly – keeping physical contact to the minimum as he'd normally do. Or maybe even more than his standards for the occasions when they'd be alone at her place.

"About that."- Egon hoped that it would have been the last dejavu for the next month- "I have been wanting to ask you something."

Her back went rigid- "What is it?"

"How are you?" - he simply asked.

That was a one million dollar question- "I'm tired. Have some fever. But I'll survive."

"You know that I didn't mean it like that." - Egon put down his mug and took her hand with his.

She didn't reply right away. Instead she grabbed his hand with both of hers and inspected it in silence.

It looked bigger. But she knew it was because her own hands had changed in size.

He let her, adding in his other hand for her to study. Silence fell on them as she traced the many lines on his palms.

"Do you still want to be with me?"- she finally asked, not letting go of those hands- "And please. Take your time before answering."

"You know how I feel about you."- he replied without taking the extra time she was offering him.

"Egon, I'm not the same person I was yesterday. And not even the same person I was one year ago. I've been under her spell a long time."- she freed his hands, standing up to go look out of the window. The world had sure become bigger, now that she had lost her extra height.

He followed her and hugged her from behind - "I'm not the same person as I was yesterday or one year ago either."

"Don't go philosophical on me, you know I don't get those things."- she cut it short.

"Don't play dumb with me, I know you get them."- he held her a bit tighter. He had missed her fast talking- "What's the problem? The real one?"

She tried to speak it, but it was a thought too horrible to be spoken aloud. She repressed a sob.

He kissed her head and gently pulled her away from the window - "Let's go to bed."

* * *

They slept until sunset, comforted by the darkness offered by the shut windows.

After an unsettling dream she couldn't remember, Janine opened her eyes. She felt as if she was about to explode. Fifteen hours of being herself had beaten her. She felt nauseous, probably also because of her body not approving the afternoon napping.

She regretted not having slept in the morning and snuggled closer to the other occupant of her bed.

Feeling her move he quietly called her name.

"I'm awake, yeah."- she replied in a hoarse voice, then she blindly reached for the lamp's chord and pulled it. The light was mild enough not to hurt their eyes- "Is it drugs time?"

"Still missing a few hours to that."- he said after checking the clock on the nightstand- "Feeling better?"

"I think fever's gone."- she sat up, resting her back against the headboard. She had slept with her clothes on and felt sweaty- "I need another shower."

"You should have at least taken off your stockings."- he turned to lay on his side, facing her lower self to block the fastidious light.

"I don't feel comfortable with who I am at the moment."- she replied, looking down to meet his eye- "I... feel..."- she hesitated, biting her lips. Then she blurted out her horrible thought- "I feel like I shouldn't have survived."

He sat up at once, crossing his legs. He couldn't believe she seriously meant what she had just said.

"It's normal to have bad thoughts. You still need some time to recover."

"Egon, I seriously hate myself. How can I walk out of that door and face everyone?" - she moaned, hiding her face.

Maybe because of the fever, or maybe because he didn't know what to do anymore, Egon started to undress.

Feeling the noise of clothes, she half thought he was leaving – which made her look up again.

"Since you have more knowledge about beauty than I do.. "- he said as he fought a little awkward battle to get rid of the gymn pants- "...I'd like to ask your opinion about something that's been on my mind for a while."

"...Y...yeah..."- she stammered. Why was the guy undressing. Why.

He kneeled, and the mattress squeaked under his weight. Then pointed at his face- "Do you like my face?"

"W-well..."- she was seriously lost.

He didn't let her finish- "Don't you think it'd be better if my jaw was a bit wider? Or my nose less bumpy?"

"...I..."- she tried to reply but he cut her off again.

"Also I'd look better with some more muscles."- he flexed one arm to show his biceps- "It'd make me a real man, wouldn't it?"

"You don't need big muscles to be a man. And there's nothing wrong with your face."- she put in real quick before he could stop her again. Had something gone wrong in his head too? Maybe the spawn of her Fairy Goodmother had been influencing him aswell?

"Don't you patronize me."- he scolded her- "You are lying to make me feel better."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"- she cried out of pure exasperation, almost biting her hands not to jump at his neck- "I don't care about your damn nose or jaw or whatever, that's not why I..."

Her voice trailed down as she realized he had tricked her good.

He was sitting down in a more relaxed fashion and a smile had appeared on his face. He gestured for her to go on.

"You dirty bastard..."- her voice was still upset, but her lips were curled up. She pushed him, he took old of her arms and brought her down with him- "You twisted, evil..."

He laughed as she straddled him - "You'll make me blush with all of these compliments."

"Don't you ever do that again."- she pointed her finger right at him, trying to keep her face straight.

"I don't think I will."- he shifted to better support her weight with his hips- "You got my point."

"I did."- she assumed a more relaxed pose, resting her hands on his belly. She felt stupid. Roles inverted , she knew she would have accused him of the same things he had accused her of during his charade- "Will you bear with me? I promise I'll be better soon."

"I will. And you'll be fine."- he reassured her, the big smile still plastered on him.

Their smiles soon faded off as the mood changed. He reached out to cup her face, lifting his torso a bit to meet her lips halfway as he pulled her back down with him.

The kiss was growing to be a very heated one when the whole lobsters and hamburgers matter forced its way back into Janine's head. She stopped him.

He thought he had done something wrong and was about to panic.

Her brain didn't approve her stopping and got really tangled up, causing her doubts to come out in a really peculiar fashion- "Egon, do you prefer lobsters or hamburgers?"

He gave her a really really baffled look. Then his own messed up brain produced a barely coherent answer- "I'd rather have cake."

She thought about it for a moment- "Me too."


	10. Epilogue

The outburst of passion had soon died out because of their extreme tiredness. Comfortably tangled up with each other, they spent together their first peaceful night in a long time.

Hunger woke them up. Like zombies they blindly rolled off the bed, found their way to and out of the bathroom, then clumsily tried to put together some breakfast.

"This ain't working."- Janine grunted, sadly looking at the eggs she had just burnt. There wasn't any other egg in the fridge, and Marcus had used much of the little food stored in it.

Egon admitted his own share of defeat, smelling the awful coffee he had managed to brew- "This somewhat worked, but I wouldn't recommend drinking it."

She let out a frustrated moan and threw the uneatable eggs into the trash.

He rubbed her back. So good to feel she didn't have extra bone stubs on it anymore - "We can buy something on our way to the office. And take care of grocery on the way back."

Janine set the pan aside and turned to find his chest and press herself against it.

He had just implicitly told her that he would spend at least another night at her place, and it was the best gift ever.

She felt his arms come around her, and she knew he would have kept his promise.

* * *

Ray couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing.

He had gone to the window to open it and let some fresh air in the living area of the firehouse.

"Winston! Come here!"- he prompted the man sitting on the couch with his cup of coffee to join him in front of the window- "Quick!"

Winston put down his mug at once and obeyed. He smiled as soon as he noticed what had caught Ray's attention- "That's some unusual sight. Good kind of unusual."

Under their eyes, two stores below, Egon was about to cross the street to reach the firehouse's main entrance, arm in arm with a relaxed looking Janine.

"Come on, hold hands you two!"- Ray muttered from behind the glass, watching them cross the street.

Winston chuckled and dragged him away from the window - "Give 'em time, homeboy."

* * *

Peter had been awake for a while.

Basking in the wonderful sensation of sunlight warming the already hot tumb of blankets he had buried himself in, he pretended to be asleep. Maybe his brain would have caught the drift and let him sleep some more.

The trick worked, making him drift off again. Coming to, he heard rustling noises. Hoping it was not Slimer rummaging through his stuff, he pulled the blanket off and sat up to look around.

"Good morning."- Egon greeted him from his bed. His jumpsuit laid on the floor and he was dressed up in clean clothes.

"G'Mornin'..."- Peter slurred, forcing himself off the bed- "Goin' on a trip or what?"

"I've decided to spend some days at Janine's."- the blond replied as he resumed filling his duffle bag with stuff he would need - "Since I'm not feeling good enough to work, I'll make good use of the days I'll need to heal and keep an eye on her."

Peter sat down beside him, scratching his tangled hair - "That's good."

"I foolishly thought it was over, but the hardest part comes now."- Egon said, using his thighs as a board to fold one of his pajamas. He had kept his cool, but her confession still made him feel upset - "Last night she told me she wished she hadn't made it out alive."

"It's gonna be hard on her." - Peter stirred his legs, repressing a yawn - "But we won't let her down again."

The physicist had felt lighter just by speaking those words and listening to his friend's simple answer- "And she knows."

They sat in silence for a while as Egon finished stuffing his bag until it looked as if it was about to burst open: he had added some extra underwear, another pajama and a couple more pants to leave in 'his' drawer at Janine's place. It couldn't hurt.

"Hey. What about Delacroix?" - Peter suddenly remembered about the smug smile that had appeared on Egon's face after his private talk with the chemist.

Egon couldn't stifle a laughter, and gladly answered to that question.

* * *

They watched her as she fought a little battle to open the sugar jar. Smaller hands and less strenght were making the task even harder.

"Who closed this?" - Janine groaned, giving up. Her blond self would have opened it with some effort.

With a chuckle, Winston picked up the jar and rotated its lid until it popped open - "I did, sorry."

"It's okay. I guess I still have to get used to good old me." - she bitterly said, finally able to sweeten her coffee.

"I like good old you." - Ray stated with a smile, his mind already erasing the stuck up fake blond Janine in favour of her original self.

The honest comment made her cheeks feel warmer - "T..thanks, Ray." - to avoid the awkward silence that would have followed, she presented them a medium sized white box - "So... I have some breakfast..."

"Got it for free from your affectionate sponsors?" - Winston asked, eyeing the logo on its side.

"Actually Egon got it." - she replied, then added - "Got it for free I mean. Most of it at least. He went in for two and came out with six." - she opened the box to reveal a set of six single portioned shortcakes - "I'm not sure why."

"Was it a single lady?" - Winston dared to ask; Egon always got a lot of unwanted attentions from them ladies, not like he'd notice them most of times.

She picked a strawberry shortcake for herself - "Nope. Same adorable old guy that serves me everytime I go to that cafè. Oh, and he's been happily married for the past thirty years with an equally adorable lady."

"We should ask him as soon as he manages to drag Pete out of bed." - Winston chuckled, trying to solve that little mystery in his head.

* * *

Three cakes down and three still surviving, footsteps approached , announcing that someone was about to walk down the stairs. One set of naked legs and feet followed by a clothed one, two more cups of coffee were served and two more little cakes got picked up.

"This stuff's good." - Peter wolfed down his portion, then he pointed at the surviving one - "Anyone wants to finish this?"

They let him have it and he happily took that chance.

"Stuff always tastes better when it's for free." - Janine stated, knowing that she'd have to start spending again on her morning comfort food. So that cake had tasted extra good to her.

Peter was about to say something like 'you go, girl' when he noticed a subtle change in Egon's facial expression - "So you're the next goodies hunter, Big Guy?"

"I don't plan on becoming one." - the blond replied, still eating his share - "Janine's the one to thank, actually."

"Me?" - she asked, surprised - "You must be mistaken, I've been sitting outside with my coffee the whole time."

"Well... When I went in the first time to buy coffee they did give me a weird look. After I got back inside to buy the shortcakes, the owner's wife asked me if it was Doctor Spengler and if it was you sitting at the table outside. I told her she was right." - Egon recalled aloud the details of his little talk with the cafè owners. Janine hadn't wanted to go in with him, too worried that those people could comment about her 'new' looks - "Then she said they hadn't seen you in over a month and that they had started to worry." -

"Over a month?" - she echoed - "I always go there at least once a week... Oh. They couldn't tell it was me after I've changed."

"I told them you were just back from a long holiday." - the physicist replied - "Then her husband said 'Oh we haven't seen you in a while too. Did you go together on that holiday?'"

Janine facepalmed. As much as she loved to stick to her block's cafè, she wished people would mind their own goddamn businness more - "Then what?"

"I wasn't really expecting that. I think they interpreted my face flaming up as a big 'yes'. And that's how I got the extra shortcakes." - he concluded, shifting a bit uncomfortably as everyone else gave it a good laugh - "I think I'll let another month or two pass before I go in there again."

"Don't worry, I'll talk to them tomorrow." - Janine reassured him. She'd have paid sweet money to see the look on his face when he'd been asked that question.

"Maybe it would be best to stick to the misunderstanding. I already feel bad enough for having walked out of there with this box." - Egon admitted, hiding behind his mug as he said that.

"Those two sound like a very nice and caring couple." - Ray didn't lose his chance to put in his own two cents - "You two could just walk in there together tomorrow morning. I'm sure they'd be happy to see that."

Peter snickered at the determined expression on Ray's face - "I can just picture that. Hand in hand and timidly smiling to each other."

Ray and Peter standing up to take each other's hand, go hide in the kitchen and come out again to play a convincing rendition of Ray's suggestion was the last nail on Egon's coffin, making him shake his head and stick his nose in the newspaper.

* * *

After breakfast, Egon could have his two or three hours in the lab to file the mess of data from the whole Makeoveris Lotsabucks case.

He and Ray gone and locked in their perfect world of ordinated chaos, Janine decided to go check how much she'd be behind on her job upon taking service again after that weekend.

"At least she wasn't a slob." - she commented as she finished going through the file cabinet. It had been ordered so maniacally it was insanely perfect. She did remember every single billing from the last month as well as most of the jobs, but she couldn't recall being so ordinated and efficient. Even the handwriting was different.

"Talking in third person now?" - Peter appeared from the stairs, making her start.

"Maybe." - she replied, checking that she had put back everything into the wide cabinet - "It may have been my body and what was left of my soul, but it damn sure wasn't me anymore."

"How's first day back in your shoes been?" - he asked, placing his ass on her desk.

"I'm so grateful Egon's sticking to me." - she leaned against the cabinet, her brows furrowing.

Peter already knew about her bad thoughts, but played dumb - "How so?"

"I had the very bad idea of going through 'her' stuff. And the more I did so, the more I hated myself. It was so depressing." - she took off her glasses to rub her eyes. Tiredness was kicking back - "I swear hurting myself has never been on my mind, but I seriously hate what I look like. All I can see when I look at myself are flaws. It's depressing."

She looked like she wasn't done talking, so he gestured her to go on.

To his silence, she confessed one last thing - "The fact that Egon doesn't see those flaws on me is probably the only reason why I'm not locked up at home getting wasted on cheap vodka."

"You think he's just being a gentlemen, or...?" - the man asked, wanting to gather some info.

"He's for real." - She smiled heartfeltly, pointing at her short skirt and transparent stockings - "He's even convinced me to wear these with no effort."

"What can I say, the guy's got taste." - he smirked, and seeing the same smirk appear on her face reassured him. He knew she was gonna regain her usual confidence, with some help.

Voices approaching preceded the appearance of the missing men. Evidently lab fun was over.

Peter's butt was replaced by Egon's duffle bag as everyone grouped in front of the desk to bid goodbye.

Janine hung her purse on her shoulder - "So... see you on Monday, guys."

"You can take a few more days off, if you need to." - Ray offered. Egon looked pretty tired and worn out to him, so it was natural to think that she'd be feeling even worse.

"It's okay, I'll be back on track Monday morning." - she smiled and hugged him first, then passed on to hugging the others.

"You keep an eye on this guy here, alright?" - Peter lightly pushed Egon's back to have him step from the desk side over to the door's direction. Seemed like lab time had beat him good.

Following his friend's unspoken suggestion, Egon managed to pick up his bag before finding himself at Janine's side, repressing a yawn. Feeling numb, he said goodbye and blindly followed her lead out of the street door.

Closing the door behind them, she looked up at his face, felt something snap in her neck. Groaning, she pressed her hand over where the pain was coming from - "Damn it, I could use being taller."

Her hand was replaced by his one, massaging her sore neck lightly - "I've never stopped needing to crank my neck to look at you. Perhaps I am the one that should be shorter."

It could get painful sometimes to have to look up so high, but he was perfect height for her head to rest easily on that comfortable spot she loved between his shoulder and collar bone. She wouldn't give that up so easily ever again - "Maybe. But I really think we make a good match as we are."

Her arm around his waist and his hand at the base of her neck, they walked to where her car was.

_**The End**  
(20130417-20130827)_

* * *

_E dicono che se ci sei anche tu  
_And they say that in your presence  
_sembro meno nervosa…  
_I look less nervous...  
_E' che mi togli i nervi e te ne vai.  
_That's because you take all of my nerves and you walk away.  
_So solo che la curva del tuo collo  
_I only know that the curve of your neck  
_è il posto più perfetto che ci sia  
_is the most perfect place ever  
_per questa fronte  
_for this forehead of mine  
_e se mi abbracci è come entrare in casa  
_and if you hold me it's like entering home  
_sapendo che non ci si può restare…  
_perfectly knowing that I can't stay...

(Excerpt taken from: "La Coinquilina Scalza" - Isabella Leardini)


End file.
